


SNAFU

by Zaffie



Series: Another Other Earth [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: And Parallel Lives, And Random Crap, And Shizz, Assassins Chasing People, Ava And Sara Will Angst, Borderline Kid-Fic, But They Will Angst Together, Concurrent Stories, Conspiracy Theories About Rip, F/F, I Don't Know Why I Keep Doing Those, I'm Not Even Broody I'm Twenty, Involves Alternate Earths, Love Clones, Mini-Sara, Several Intertwining Plot Threads, There Are Clones In This, There Are Demons In This, There is a child, Time Bureau Shenanigans, and Time Travel, and be in love, woohoo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:21:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaffie/pseuds/Zaffie
Summary: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.Or, Sara's once-and-future-girlfriend seems to be kidnapping children, Earth-11 politics spill over into the 'real world', and Constantine keeps insisting that the Legends fight a dragon. A timeship captain's job is never done.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I can never seem to make myself be serious in tags or summaries but this is actually a serious fic. Or, mostly. Like 80%. I swear. 
> 
> Also, first LoT fic! Cool, cool.

     **E** **ARTH 11**  
     **STARLIGHT C** **ITY  
     M** **AY 2018**

     The sick green light of the breach makes Nyssa’s face look unhealthily pale. Oliver reaches out to catch her arm when she moves to step away from him.

     “Are you sure you want to do this?” He can feel the hard ridge of a knife strapped to her forearm beneath her coat. It’s always dark on the surface, but in the dim moonlight and harsh glow of the dimensional rift, Nyssa’s silhouette looks oddly sharp and spiky. Too many weapons.

     “Let go, husband.”

     Oliver rolls his eyes and hangs on. “We don’t know how far back the breach goes,” he says. “It could be ten years or it could be fifty.”

     “I’ll do what I must.”

     “Even if you have to kill an innocent?” Oliver shakes his head. “Nyss…”

     “ _Whatever_ I must,” she says, and pulls her arm sharply out of his grip. “And you? Will you do what it takes to stay safe?”

     “Of course,” Oliver says.

     “Keep our people fighting?”

     “Yes.”

     “And Kalina?”

     That’s enough to make Oliver swallow, hard. “Nothing’s going to hurt Kalina. Nothing. Ever.” And if he could make it true with just the strength of his words, she’d already be the safest little girl in the world.

     “I’ll see you when I return, husband.”

     “If the breach closes-”

     “Then I’ll find another,” Nyssa interrupts. “I _know_ , Oliver.”

     “Okay,” he says. “Okay.” He gets it. She can take care of herself. And he understands that being first the daughter and now the wife of Ra’s al Ghul is more than just a title. But she’s still Nyssa, and he still wants her to be careful. He needs her to come home safe.

     For a moment, Nyssa is outlined against the breach. The light flickers purple and blue and green, the door of the wormhole dancing and wavering in the air. It’s uncomfortably bright but Oliver doesn’t take his eyes off his wife’s face. He thinks - almost - that she smiles.

     There’s nothing more to say. Nyssa steps backwards and she’s gone. Oliver lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. It’s done, then. He’ll have no way of knowing if it worked. If the timeline changes, he won’t notice. Only Nyssa will see the differences; the ripples she’ll create.

     The breach shudders, ragged edges of the tear in time rippling and shaking. Oliver puts his knuckles up against his mouth. “Come on,” he mutters. As if it hears him, the breach seems to stabilise. A split-second in time when Oliver thinks this might actually work out. It might be okay.

     Then the wormhole crumples like a scrunched-up sheet of paper, squeezing smaller and smaller until, abruptly, it’s gone. There’s no sound to signify the absence. Just the sudden darkness of the surface and an afterimage of light playing across Oliver’s eyelids.

     Nyssa’s on her own in there. And, now, so is he.

 

 

     **E** **ARTH 11**  
     **STARLING C** **ITY  
     O** **CTOBER 1999**

     Sara shouldn’t have punched Lacey Walker.

     She’d known it was a mistake as soon as it happened, but Sara has never been very good at controlling her temper. And Lacey had called her a bitch, because Sara had outpaced the older girl and scored a goal in the second half of the soccer match.

     In hindsight, picking a fight with an eighth grader was not Sara’s brightest move. She plays with girls two years older than herself because she’s good enough to keep up with them, but soccer skills and social skills are two very different things. And it’s October, and the anniversary of the day all the bad stuff happened had been on Monday, so Sara was already keyed-up and unhappy before the match. Lacey had just tipped her over the edge.

     But now there are four girls and two boys spread out across the path in front of Sara and all of them are bigger than she is. Lacey stands front and centre with her eye already swelling purple. It’s raining, but the older kids don’t seem to care. Most of them have rain jackets. Sara doesn’t, and her hair is already sticking damply to her face.

     Sara stops her bike a couple of yards ahead of them and puts her feet down. She’d changed into sneakers after training, but she’s still wearing her soccer shorts, long socks and shinpads. “What?” she asks belligerently.

     “Look what you did, you little bitch,” Lacey says, jabbing a finger angrily at her black eye.

     Sara shrugs. “Plenty more where that came from.” She closes her hands into fists, just in case there’s a chance that she can’t talk her way out of this one.

     The two boys move forwards. Sara doesn’t know them, but she’d guess that the redhead is Lacey’s boyfriend. The other one looks uncomfortable with the whole situation. Probably because he hadn’t realised he’d be helping threaten an eleven-year-old.

     Sara swings one leg over her bike. She doesn’t want to get caught up in it if they knock her over. Lacey steps closer and so does one of the other girls. Sara recognises her from the soccer team, too. Louisa. She’s a striker, like Sara, so they don’t come up against each other in scrimmages very often.

     “Tell me that you’re sorry,” Lacey says, “and maybe I’ll stop the guys from smashing your face into the sidewalk.”

     Laurel would have been in eighth grade this year. The thought washes over Sara suddenly and she’s startled to feel tears prickling at the back of her eyes. She hasn’t cried for eight months. It’s a point of pride now.

     The nervous-looking boy notices. “Hey, Lacey,” he says. “She’s crying.”

     Furiously, Sara blinks fast and glares up at him. “No I’m not!”

     “Aw, poor baby,” Louisa croons.

     “I’m not _crying!”_ Sara yells, and she lunges forward only to jerk painfully to a stop. Someone has a hold of her collar. She twists and struggles on the end of it and gets a glimpse of a bigger girl behind her. She'd gotten back there without Sara noticing somehow.

     Sara lifts her arms over her head and, in a quick, slithering motion, pulls free of the long-sleeved shirt. She jumps backwards a couple of steps, feels her foot hit something that moves and goes down heavily on her side against the concrete. She’d tripped over her bike. Her hip aches and the skin on her elbow stings where it’s scraped raw.

     Lacey’s boyfriend laughs. “Nice training bra.”

     The pain vanishes. Sara sees red. She breathes the anger in and lets it fill her and then she scrambles up and drives her fist into the boy’s gut, as hard and fast as she possibly can.

     He makes a strange mewling sound and doubles over, which is exactly what she wanted. Sara tries to run, but one of the other girls sticks out a leg and she trips, falling for the second time in two minutes. This time she lands off the sidewalk, on her hands and knees in the mud at the edge of the path. Once again, Sara jumps to her feet, but they’re ready for her this time. She gets an open-handed slap to her face which spins her head around so fast the bones in her neck pop and crack. Someone kicks the back of her knee and Sara goes down for a third time.

     There’s mud and rain in her eyes. Sara fights dirty, with hands and feet, elbows and knees, lashing out at people she can barely see. She lands a punch with one fist, finds the other one tangled in long hair and _yanks_. There’s a squeal from somewhere above her and for a second the weight on Sara’s legs eases and she rolls over and crawls forward.

     She gets hit in the back hard, can’t tell if it’s a punch or a kick. “Get off me!”

     One of the girls mutters, “Piece of _shit_.”

     “Get off!” Sara twists around, curling her knees up into her chest for protection. Back near the road, the nervous-looking boy is stomping on her bike.

     Lacey brings her hand down on the side of Sara’s face and the pain explodes through her head, accompanied by a fierce, loud _boom._

     For a second, she thinks her skull has fractured. And then Sara hears Lacey scream. One of the boys yells and then they’re running, all of them, even the redhead with his arms wrapped around his midsection.

     Sara wipes mud out of her eyes with the back of her hand and props herself up on her elbows to stare at the road. There’s a woman standing there, her head and long dark hair uncovered in the rain, a black bandanna pulled up over the lower half of her face. She’s holding a sword. It’s pointing at Sara.

     Ice floods Sara’s veins and her mind seems to skid to a stop. There’s something behind the woman like a gash in the air, bleeding blue and purple light. For a second it all looks fake - like a movie, playing out on a giant screen in front of her. And then the woman steps forward.

     Sara moves without meaning to. Over onto her hands and knees, feet under her and then she’s up and running, slipping and sliding through the mud faster than she’s ever gone on the soccer pitch. She doesn’t feel the rain on her face or the wind against her bare skin. Just the fear.

     Branches scratch her knees, and she swerves around tree trunks, stumbling over roots. She doesn’t stop. She can’t stop. Her heart pounds and her feet smack the ground and her legs ache with the strength of it.

     “Sara Lance!”

     It’s a woman’s voice. And that makes it worse, because the woman with the sword knows Sara, somehow, but Sara doesn’t know her. She definitely doesn’t know anyone who carries a sword around. A real, long, gleaming metal sword. The image of it is fixed in Sara’s mind and she knows suddenly and undeniably that she can’t keep running. Not like this. Not this fast. Not after a soccer practice and a beat-down from eighth graders.

     Her bike is on the sidewalk. If she can just get back to it, then she can ride. She’s a fast rider, and it’s all downhill from here until home. Dad might be home, but even if he isn’t, Sara can go inside and get a phone and call 911.

     The thought of doing something as mundane as calling 911 - it won’t be her first time - calms her down a little. Obviously that’s the solution to all this. She just has to get home. And to get home she needs her bike.

     Slowing down a little, Sara starts to curve around, taking a wide loop through the trees until she’s running back at the road. Between her thumping heart and rasping breath she can’t hear anything around her, but surely the woman had followed her off the road. Sword-lady is still somewhere in the trees behind Sara and the bike is so, so close.

     She can get it. She can. Sara leaps over a bush, ducks under a low-hanging tree branch and sprints up onto the sidewalk. There’s the bike. There’s the weird rip just hanging in the air. Like some sort of a gateway. A portal, maybe. Sara’s read about those in comic books.

     The portal isn’t important. The bike is. She slows down as she crosses the last few feet and reaches down to grip the handlebars. She made it. Everything’s okay. Except that when Sara raises the bike off its side, the front wheel stays laying on the ground.

     Sara doesn’t ever curse. She _doesn’t_. But today, staring down at her broken bike wheel, bruised and shirtless and covered in mud, she says, “ _Fuck_.”

     “Sara Lance.” The voice is lilting and unfamiliar. The woman has an accent that Sara doesn’t recognise.

     “Who are you?” she yells, spinning around. She can’t even see her pursuer. “What do you want?”

     The woman steps out of the trees and into plain view. “You,” she says.

     “What did I do?”

     “It’s not what you _have_ done. It’s what you _will_ do.”

     That doesn’t make any sense. Sara gulps in air, chest heaving. This woman is insane - she’s psychotic, or schizophrenic, or a serial killer, and she’s got a goddamn sword.

     “Leave me alone,” Sara says. Her voice shakes. She sounds like a scared kid.

     She _is_ a scared kid.

     The woman’s hand flicks down and out and something silver shoots through the air. It strikes Sara’s leg and she screams. She can feel it - the pain - but it’s dim and distant and the shock is taking over. Everything sounds muted and far away. Like she’s underwater.

     Sara remembers being underwater. She remembers the way the bubbles had spiralled out of the car. She remembers swimming out and up, clawing towards the surface, desperate for air. So desperate that she’d left her family behind.

     _You’re a survivor_ , Dad had said to her in the hospital afterwards. _That’s nothing to be ashamed of._

     She’s a survivor. She’ll do whatever it takes.

     Sara spins around and runs for the portal.


	2. Chapter 2

     **E** **ARTH 1**  
     **STAR C** **ITY  
     M** **AY** **/O** **CTOBER 2018**

     It’s the fluctuations in the anachronism which catch Ava’s eye. Normally she wouldn’t look twice at a Level 3 anomaly. She’d dispatch a couple of agents to take care of it and move on with her day.

     This one is different. It had started as a Level 5, jumped to a Level 8 and then dropped back down to a Level 3, which is where it’s sitting now, blinking softly on Ava’s computer monitor. She’s seen an anachronism increase in severity before - usually after the Legends get involved - but a decrease is new. She can’t think of any reason for that to happen.

     Besides, it’s not far from the timeline where Ava is living. Star City, October 2018. Five months ahead of her. And she hasn’t been out in the field since meeting the Legends in Salvation, watching Beebo (of all things) battle a demon lord. Working as Director is vastly more time-consuming and exhausting than Ava had anticipated. She’s got a rigid schedule and dozens of documents keeping her up to date; on her phone, her work computer, her personal laptop. Even her time courier is set to give Ava updates about the more serious leftover anachronisms.

     It would be almost like taking a break. The kind of break where she goes to hunt down a person (or creature, or object, or unnecessarily large gorilla) and then returns them to their rightful place in time. A very productive sort of break.

     Ava stands up from her computer, tugs her jacket down straight, checks that her shoelaces are tied (they are) and that her time courier is on her wrist (it is), and then pulls her hair into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck and strides out of her office.

     A big part of being in charge turns out to be communication. Making sure that everyone knows where everyone else is, was, and will be. They’ve got a mission board in the main room, and that’s what Ava heads towards. She’ll put her name in for the Level 3 and make sure that no one else tries to grab the anomaly while she’s on its tail.

     “Are you going out, Director Sharpe?” a dark-haired, serious-eyed woman asks her at the board.

     “I am,” Ava says. She doesn’t remember the woman’s name. Leaning over the board, she touches the icon for the anachronism and tags it with her signature.

     “That one doesn’t look too bad,” a short, pale man observes. Ava’s almost sure his name is Andrew. He’s a full head shorter than her, which isn’t unusual, but doesn’t fill her with confidence about the Level 6 anachronism he’s signing up for.

     “It looks straightforward,” Ava agrees. The Level 3 pulses gently and then drops down to a Level 2. Her time courier pings softly to inform her of the change. “It shouldn’t be a problem,” Ava says. She forces herself to smile at the woman and possibly-Andrew before she turns away. People like it when she smiles at them.

     Even inside Ava’s own head, the thought sounds cold. Robotic. Inhuman. She hates herself for it.

 

     October doesn’t look particularly different. It’s colder, of course, although Star City never has great weather anyway. A half-built apartment block near the Time Bureau has been completed and the familiar scaffolding and fluttering plastic sheets have gone. Nothing much has changed.

     Ava digs her hands deep into her pockets and tucks her chin into her chest. The wind chills her face and sneaks in through the spaces between her coat buttons. It’s just after six in the morning and the sky is still a dark grey. Probably another hour to go before sunrise. No clouds today. That’s unusual.

     Not just unusual, Ava tells herself, it’s nice. She likes sunny days. She dislikes cloudy days. She has _feelings_ about the weather which go beyond noting statistical abnormalities.

     It doesn’t feel very convincing.

     She’s only a few hundred metres away from the anachronism now. Ava wonders, idly, if her insistence on using the metric system is another clone side-effect. Probably. It feels intrinsically right to her; a decimal system that means she can convert units quickly and simply in her head. Ten, one hundred, one thousand. Ones and zeros.

     God, if she starts talking in binary, Ava is seriously going to go insane. It’s been getting worse since she found out, she thinks. Her inhumanity sticks out like a sore thumb. She can’t unsee it. She can’t forget the dozens of other Avas in their massive assembly-line warehouse. The fake memories that Rip had implanted in her feel strange and distant now.

     Her time-courier pings again and Ava pulls her hand out of her pocket and pushes up her sleeve to look at the device. The anachronism has dropped to a Level 1. It’s fading away, she thinks, and shivers when a particularly cold gust of wind slips in through the gap between her coat collar and knit hat. The courier also shows her precise location in relation to the anachronism. It’s not far now. Just ahead a little and around a corner.

     Ava’s so busy with her eyes on the courier that she forgets to look up until she almost walks into a dumpster. She catches a glimpse of green in her peripheral vision and jerks to a halt, bringing her fists up sharply before she knows what she’s doing. There’s nothing here to fight. Just a lot of garbage. She’s standing in a poorly lit open area behind a little line of restaurants and fast food places and the dumpsters smell of grease and old milk.

     Somewhere around here is a tiny, almost insignificant historical anomaly. Ava wonders if she’ll have to check in the dumpsters. She wrinkles her nose at the thought. Surely not. She steps forward carefully, watching where her boots hit the dirty concrete. Just in case it’s small enough to be crushed, whatever it is. She peers underneath dumpsters and behind dumpsters and makes her way past them all one at a time. Slow and methodical. Organised. Careful.

     An angry orange cat shoots out from under the fifth dumpster Ava checks and slashes at her ankle. She jumps back out of its way and watches, breathing fast, as it hightails it down the alley and away onto the main street.

     “Jeez,” Ava mutters. And usually cats like her. Or at least they tolerate her. Dogs don’t. She’s always wondered why… oh. Well now she probably knows the answer to that. Dogs don’t like her because she’s a clone. Which is just really racist of them, now that Ava stops to think about it. Dogs are racist. She’s going to tell Sara that, and-

     Ava peers around the edge of the last dumpster and freezes stock-still because there’s a dead body back here. It’s not the body itself which catches her off-guard, though. It’s how small it is. Tiny and fragile, pale white skin and spun-gold hair. A child. Ava looks back at the courier on her wrist and notes the muted pulsing of the Level 1 icon. No wonder it’s been slowly decreasing. The anachronism has been lying out here freezing to death.

     The little girl is wearing a sky blue gymnastics crop top, black shorts and long black socks. Ava’s fingers shoot to the buttons of her coat. Her hands tremble as she slides out of the coat and then peels off the sweater she’s wearing underneath. The time courier keeps drawing her eyes back to the Level 1 and she wonders if it’s going to disappear altogether.

     Ava rolls the kid over onto her back and then lifts her up. She’s a dead-weight and her face is blank and still. There’s no heat coming from the girl’s skin. Ava pulls the child into her own lap and thinks for a second that she might already be too late. That the Level 1 anachronism might simply be the discovery of a body that doesn’t belong here.

     There’s a slow, uneven rise-and-fall of the child’s chest. She’s breathing. She’s alive. Carefully, Ava works her sweater over the girl’s limp arms, across her head and down her body. There’s mud smeared on the kid’s skin and clumped into her hair. Her shoes are caked with it.

     “Where did you come from?” Ava murmurs as she wraps her coat around the girl. She slides an arm underneath the child’s shoulders and another under her legs and prepares to lift her up, princess-style. The thing is, the Time Bureau is an office first and foremost. They don’t have blankets, or clothes, or any food that’s more substantial than a few cookies and a mug of tea.  But Ava has an apartment in the city, only eight blocks and five months away.

     She sets the place and date on her courier and waits for the window to open before she stands up with the child in her arms, taking the strain in her thighs. The girl’s head rolls limply against Ava’s chest. She’s heavy but small. Her legs dangle loosely.

     Ava peers through the window. That’s her apartment. Everything looks right. There’s that stupid vase on the dresser which she always leaves there when she’s not home. Since she started time-travelling, Ava’s been worried about the repercussions of running into herself somewhere. The apartment seemed the most likely place for it to happen - so she’d worked out a system. An ugly vase on the dresser means that it’s all clear.

     She steps straight from concrete to carpet, takes a second to adjust and then pivots towards the bed. Her sheets are clean and this child has been sleeping in a dumpster alley. The thought of the mud and street-dirt flits through Ava’s head and she winces but doesn’t hesitate to lower the girl down onto her comforter.

     An open time window is a security risk. Turning her attention to the courier means that Ava has to see that tiny, vulnerable Level 1 icon blinking back up at her. It looks even smaller than before. She closes the window and then drops her wrist, deliberately looking away. There are other things to do. The gross vase on the dresser gets tucked away in a drawer and then Ava moves past the bedroom into the tiny hallway and flicks on the lights.

     They illuminate the whole apartment at once, and as Ava steps back through the open partition into the bedroom, three things immediately jump out at her. First: the girl is more badly hurt than she’d appeared; in the bright light, Ava can see dried blood staining the black socks. Second: the child looks familiar. _Really_ familiar in a way that nags at Ava’s mind, but she can’t quite put a name to the face.

     And third: Rip’s pin is gone.

     It’s such a stupid thing to notice. Ava had found Rip’s Time Bureau pin in the desk drawer back when she first became the Director. She’d taken it home after he died, struck by an unusual surge of sentimentality, and jabbed it into the corkboard hanging over her desk. She doesn’t remember having looked at it since, but now that it’s gone the absence is glaringly obvious. Someone has been in her apartment.

     Her hand is halfway to her courier before Ava remembers that she has more important things to do than call in a potential theft. There’s a half-dead child on her bed and she doesn’t need the Time Bureau’s assistance right now. Or anyone else’s.

     _Sara_ , her treacherous mind whispers. Ava pulls her brows together sharply. She _doesn’t_ need Sara’s help. She needs time on her own, to figure out who she is, and she shouldn’t be running back to Sara just because the other woman is familiar, or comforting, or safe.

     There are blankets in the hall closet. One at a time, Ava wraps them around the girl. She drags in her single portable heater and sets that up beside the bed, and then she pulls the mud-encrusted shoes and blood-covered socks from the girl’s legs. There’s a gash on the left shin, a long, deep one. Deep enough for sticky blood to still be oozing sluggishly from the wound. Ava grimaces, but she’s never been squeamish. She keeps a first aid kit in her bathroom cabinet. Honestly, something this severe probably needs stitches, but disinfectant, gauze and a bandage are good first steps.

     When she’s finished, Ava covers the girl’s legs in more blankets and then sits heavily on the edge of the bed. She glances at her wrist. The anachronism has ticked up to a Level 2. This is weird, Ava thinks. Really weird, and also she can’t shake the knowledge that someone has been in her apartment. Besides herself, Ava can only think of one other person who even knows her apartment _exists._ Or, well, two other people. But she doesn’t think Gary’s the culprit, somehow. And besides, the last time she’d seen Gary he’d been going with Constantine to find Sara, so…

     “No,” Ava says to herself. It sounds good, so she says it again more firmly. “No. You are _not_ going to call Sara. Absolutely not.”

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**NOWHERE I** **N P** **ARTICULAR  
18** **TH ** **C** **ENTURY-ISH**

“Ava?” Sara glances down at the readout and then leans back in her chair and props her legs on the dash of the jumpship. “Are you FaceTiming me?”

     Ava moves her shoulders in an awkward half-shrug and says, “Hi.”

     “Yeah,” Sara says. “Hi. What’s wrong?”

     “Nothing.” Ava frowns at the screen. “Is this a bad time? Where are you?”

     “Um. Nowhere in particular.” Sara glances up. “Gideon? Where are we?”

     “In the temporal zone somewhere between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,” Gideon says pleasantly.

     “There you go,” Sara says. “We’re just drifting. Everyone is very hungover.”

     “When is it for you?”

     “About a week after we defeated Mollus. Whoops. I mean Mallus.” Sara grins. “Constantine showed up in Aruba and told us we have to kill dragons and demons and shit, so we’re hiding out in the temporal zone to take a quick break.”

     Ava doesn’t return the smile. Her hair is pulled back from her pale face and the skin under her eyes looks puffy and bruised with fatigue. She says, “Is Gary with you?”

     Weird reason for a call, Sara thinks. “Nah, we sent him back. I figured you’d need him. Why?”

     There’s a moment of hesitation and then Ava says, “Someone’s been in my apartment.”

     “ _Gary’s_ been in your apartment?” That’s just unfair. _Sara’s_ never been in Ava’s apartment.

     “No,” Ava says. “I don’t know. I thought you might… never mind. It doesn’t matter.” She looks down, avoiding eye contact even through the screen. “I should go.”

     “Ava, wait.”

     “It’s fine,” Ava says. “It’s nothing. I’m sorry to disturb you.” The screen swings wildly as she stands up; Sara gets a glimpse of white walls, a clock, a closed laptop on a desk and a blond head beneath a pile of blankets on the bed.

     “Ava!”

     “Thanks for sending Gary back,” Ava says, half of her face appearing back in frame. “I’ll go and talk to him. I’ve got an anachronism to sort out anyway. The whole Bureau is very busy. I have to go.” She hangs up before Sara can say anything else.

     Sara groans, tilting back in her chair and slinging her elbow over her eyes. “Gideon?”

     “Yes, Captain?”

     “Can you play back the end of that message?”

     “Of course, Captain.”

     There’s a moment’s silence and then Ava’s voice says, “I should go.”

     “Can you kill the sound, Gideon?” Sara asks quickly. She doesn’t need to hear the frantic pace of that dismissal again. The room falls silent, and Sara lets her arm drop from her face and watches the screen. The way the camera dips and moves. The brief glimpse of the bed. “Slow it down,” she says, leaning forwards. “Play it frame-by-frame.”

     Gideon complies and the blurry background of Ava’s apartment ticks past, one image at a time. The wall. The clock. It shows quarter-to-seven, although Sara has no idea if that’s am or pm. The laptop.

     The bed. It has a pale blue comforter and the mound of blankets are mostly white or grey. Very Ava, Sara thinks, but absently. She leans closer to the screen and waits for the next frame.

     As soon as it appears she says, “Freeze it, Gideon.”

     There’s a mess of blond hair framing a face in profile against the blue of the comforter. Sara’s eyes trace the long, straight line of the nose. The rounded chin, the full lower lip, the long curl of the eyelashes resting on the smooth, freckled cheeks. She knows that face intimately.

     “Holy shit,” she says, “that’s me.”

     There’s a pause and then Gideon says, “I don’t like to contradict you, Captain, but the bone structure suggests that this is the face of a pre-adolescent.”

     “Yeah,” Sara says, “but it’s me.” She sits back in her chair and blows a strand of hair away from her face. “What the fuck has the Time Bureau done now?”

 

 **E** **ARTH 11**  
**STARLING C** **ITY  
O** **CTOBER 1999**

   Nyssa’s knuckles are turning white with the strength of her grip on the sword hilt. She breathes steadily through her nose and tilts her head back, eyes closed in meditation. Outwardly, she’s the image of relaxation - save for her fist clenched around the sword.

     There will be another breach here. There has to be. It’s a hotspot: a weak point in the fabric of reality, a wound which rips and heals, rips and heals, over and over. And Nyssa had tagged the child with the microbeads in the shuriken. She can track the Lance girl now. The last time Nyssa had checked, the girl had still been in Starlight City. But that could be any version of the city, on any Earth. The tracker tells her where, but not when, or which corner of the multiverse. That will take time. Trial and error. Persistence.

     Which is why Nyssa is sitting here on a cold street instead of going home to her family. For all she knows, removing the Lance girl from the timeline could already have made changes which ripple through into the future. The war could already be over, and Oliver and Kalina might be safe and well and waiting for Nyssa to return to them.    

     Persistence. What _might_ come to pass is not the same as what _will_ come to pass, and Nyssa isn’t going home until Sara Lance is dead. She doesn’t care how far she has to chase her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sinusitis got me (it's been sixteen DAYS, I am so PISSED (angry not drunk)) and everything I write comes out nonsensical cos of the fever. Typical. And now I've burnt through my stocks of pre-written chapters, so next update will not be as speedy. WHOOPS MY BAD. Oh well LOL.

**EARTH 1**  
**TEMPORAL ZONE**  
 **2018-ADJACENT**

     Zari sticks her head out from under the control panel and says, “The time drive’s been through a lot, Sara.”

     “It’s working, right?”

     “Yeah, it’s working,” Zari says. Then she frowns. “I mean, I think so. Go easy on it, okay?”

     “Just a quick trip,” Sara promises. “There and back. Nothing serious.”

     Zari crawls out and stands up, brushing her palms on the legs of her jeans. “Cool. See you in a few.”

     “Tell Am- oh.” Sara frowns. “Tell Ray he’s in charge until I get back.”

     “Seriously? Ray?”

     “Who the hell else am I supposed to ask?”

     Zari shrugs. “I mean, I am the only one sober enough to be changing time drives…”

     “Gideon?”

     “Yes, Captain Lance?”

     “You can be in charge until I get back,” Sara says. An AI is definitely better than anyone else on the team. “Just make sure they stay in the temporal zone, okay?”

     “Like we can go anywhere else without the time drive,” Zari says

     “Zari, keep an eye on Constantine, would you? Don’t let him - I dunno, summon any demons or do any weird rituals or shit.”

     “Sounds kind of like you’re leaving me in charge.”

     “Actually, Miss Tomaz, I think you’ll find that I am the one in charge.”

     Sara rolls her eyes. Sometimes she swears that Zari and Gideon have some kind of weird sibling relationship. They certainly seem to have a lot of inside jokes. Besides, Zari’s exactly the sort of person who would bond with an AI.

     “Be good, kids,” she tells them, and ushers Zari through the jumpship door. Honestly, Sara’s more than eager to leave. She’s been raring to go since she got the call three hours ago. Ava’s got a crap-ton of explaining to do.

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STARLING CITY**  
 **MARCH 2018**

     Ava looks different when she opens the door. Better. Her cheeks are rosy and her hair falls loosely over her right shoulder. She doesn’t even look annoyed when she says, “Sara! Hi.”

     “Hi,” Sara says. She shifts from foot-to-foot and resists the urge to peer past Ava into the apartment. “Can I come in?”

     “How did you know I lived here?”

     “Gideon,” Sara says. “Are you okay?”

     “Mmhmm.” Ava steps back, holding the door open. “Come in.” She’s got a shy smile on her face and she looks… different. Better. Younger. Less stressed.

     “I was worried about you,” Sara says. “You didn’t look great when you called.”

     “When I called… you?” Ava frowns. “I didn’t.” She reaches out and puts a hand on Sara’s shoulder, curling her fingers into Sara’s hair. “Not that it’s not good to see you.”

     It suddenly snaps into place. Sara fucked up - or the jumpship did. She’s early. Months early, by the look of things. She and Ava are still _together_ here.

     Luckily Sara’s always been good at thinking on her feet. “Oh,” she says. “I don’t mean you called _me_. I meant we called _you_. Whoops.”

     “And you couldn’t get through?”

     “Yeah,” Sara says. “Exactly.”

     “That’s strange.”

     “Probably on our end. You know us, right? Always screwing stuff up.”

     Ava smiles, all soft and relaxed and - _god_ , it’s good to be back on the receiving end of that smile. “I’m glad you’re here.”

     “Yeah,” Sara says, completely honestly. “So am I.”

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
**MAY 2018**

     According to Ava’s remote check-in system, Gary is fixing a Level 5 anachronism in fourteenth-century Peru. He’s been all over the place lately. Trying to get agent of the month, she suspects. Still, she wishes he was somewhere a little closer. And a little less potentially dangerous. With a Level 5, Ava really doesn’t feel comfortable calling to interrupt. A moment’s distraction is all it takes to lose a good agent. Or even a semi-decent agent like Gary. She’s watched it happen before.

     She sits back in her computer chair and sighs. Calling Sara had been a mistake. Now Ava just feels tired. Physically and emotionally fatigued.

     There’s a rustling of blankets behind her and Ava freezes. It’s been almost twenty minutes and the girl hasn’t moved. If she’s finally awake, maybe Ava can clear this one up and get back to work. Or even just change her sheets and take a nap. She sits perfectly still, all senses on alert, waiting for even the slightest sound to tell her if the girl has woken up.

     “Where am I? Who are you? My dad’s a cop, you know.”

     Not exactly subtle. Ava spins around and is confronted by an angry, waif-like child wrapped in blankets and standing on her bed. The girl is definitely awake.

     “Your dad’s a cop?” Ava asks.

     “Yeah. So, you know, if you’ve kidnapped me, he’ll _get_ you.” The girl pulls one of the blankets closer. “Why’s it so cold in here?”

     “You were outside,” Ava says. “You’ve probably got hypothermia. You’re lucky I found you when I did.”

     The girl narrows her eyes. “You don’t have a sword, do you?”

     This is why Ava has never been able to get on with children. They just live on a completely different planet. “No,” she says. “Why would I have a sword?”

     “The other lady had a sword.”

     “Look, kid-”

     “My name’s Sara. No aitch.”

     Ava tenses when she hears the name. She forces herself to relax. It’s a common name. She can’t be on edge every time she hears it again for the rest of her life. Besides, it suits the girl’s face. She looks like a Sara.

     “Okay,” Ava says. “Sara. Why don’t you tell me how you got here? What happened?”

     “I was riding home from school,” Sara says, “and-”

     “When?”

     “When what?”

     “When were you riding home from school.”

     “Oh. Thursday,” Sara says, “and-”

     “Thursday what?”

     “Thursday the twenty-eighth of October, and-”

     “What year?”

     “Oh my god, are you ever going to let me finish?” Sara asks.

     “Yes,” Ava says, “but just… what year? And where?”

     “Nineteen-ninety-nine.” Sara rolls her eyes. “ _Duh_. What other year would it be? And in Starling City, also duh.”

     Ava’s time courier pings and she looks down. The anachronism is now a Level 7. Straight up from 2 to 7, with no reason for why. Oh, god. This isn’t good. This is really not good.

     “Sara, what’s your last name?”

     “Why do you keep asking questions? Can I finish the story or not?”

     “Your last name. Please.”

     “Lance,” Sara says. “Sara Lance. Happy? Or do you want my social security number too?”

     Ava is suddenly very, very glad that she’s already sitting down. “I think you’d better tell me the rest of the story now.”

    

 **EARTH 1**  
**TEMPORAL ZONE**  
**2018-ADJACENT**

     Constantine corners Zari outside the bathroom.

     “Dude,” she says, holding up both hands and backing into the closed door. “Personal space.”

     “Sorry, love.”

     “Not your love.”

     “Look, I thought Sara said this would only be a quick stop. How long are we going to be drifting like this?” He folds his arms over his chest. “It feels like it’s been days already and, no offence, I don’t want to be stuck on this ship. You only have _one_ bathroom.”

     “I’m pretty sure Mick doesn’t even use the bathroom half the time,” Zari says. “You could follow his example. Go find a bottle or something.”

     “No,” Constantine says, “because that’s disgusting.”

     “You’re a bit judgy for a guy who does spells with, like, baby tears and blood and shit.”

     “There’s no shit.”

     “Okay,” Zari says, and she dodges out sideways and starts down the corridor. To her annoyance, Constantine follows her. “Look, Sara’ll be back soon. Can’t you just wait?”

     “I’ve _been_ waiting. I can’t wait forever, love.”

     Zari increases her pace and finally leaves Constantine behind. “Still not your love!” she calls over her shoulder.

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
**MARCH 2018**

     “Here,” Ava says, pressing a mug of hot chocolate into Sara’s hands.

     “Thanks.” Sara wraps her fingers around the warmth and watches as Ava folds herself into the other end of the couch, tucking her legs up underneath her. “This is actually really… nice.”

     “What, you didn’t think my apartment would be nice?”

     “I can’t believe you even have sweatpants.”

     Ava laughs, a real, genuine laugh. Sara’s kind of entranced by it. God, was it really only a few weeks ago that they’d been this happy? It had all fallen apart so quickly, and Sara knows it was her fault, she does. But she can’t figure out how to fix it.

     “Mm.” Ava swallows hot chocolate and says, “Oh, I have a great story to tell you. Liu - you know Liu, right?”

     “No,” Sara says, settling back against the couch cushions.

     “He went to fix an anachronism in nineteen-ninety-one the other day. It was kind of a huge deal. There was a woolly rhino at the Super Bowl.”

     “A woolly rhino?”

     “They’re extinct now,” Ava says helpfully.

     “Well, yeah, I’d guessed that. What’s a woolly rhino?”

     “Exactly what it sounds like.”

     Sara laughs. “Okay, so he took the woolly rhino out of the Super Bowl, and? Let me guess. There was a screw-up?”

     “Woolly rhino running wild through the Bureau,” Ava confirms.

     “Wow, you’re getting as bad as us!”

     “Ah, no,” Ava says. “We don’t screw up _that_ badly.”

     Sara grins, putting her hand over her heart. “Ouch!”

      “Shut up.” Ava tugs a cushion out from underneath her leg and tosses it at Sara’s face.

     “Do you really wanna start something?” Sara asks. “Because I think we both know who’d win.”

     “Me, obviously.”

     “Don’t you remember what happened last time?”

     “Yeah,” Ava says. “I won.”

     “Uh, no, I saved your ass.”

     “I was actually doing fine on my own.”

     Sara grins, tossing the cushion back across the couch. “Liar.”

     Ava sets her hot chocolate down on the coffee table. “Okay,” she says, rising up on her knees. “I’m lying. It’s always better when you’re here.” And then she stretches forward along the couch and presses her lips to Sara’s.

     It’s good. It’s better than good, and it’s so easy for Sara to fall back into old habits - to let her body remember Ava and her mind just kind of go quiet. She’s always been good at turning off her mind. Instead she focuses on the soft give of Ava’s lips and the hot press of her tongue.

     Ava moves in closer and Sara tips her head back, sliding down in her seat. Her hot chocolate wobbles in her hand and Ava pulls back and grabs the mug from her before it can spill. Ava sets it down on the coffee table - with a coaster, because of course - and then she’s coming back to Sara, sliding one hand under Sara’s shirt and running it up the side of her ribs.

     Sara’s mostly lying down on the couch now. She pulls Ava’s head down towards her and kisses her again, eyes closed, just quiet breathing and the easy rhythm of their lips. Ava’s hair brushes against Sara’s face and neck and chest and she reaches out and catches hold of Ava’s hip, her thumb sliding into the hollow just above the bone.

     It would be so easy to say it right now. _I love you_. Maybe, if she’d said it earlier, things wouldn’t have gotten so royally fucked up. Ava wouldn’t have been so afraid, or so reluctant to accept it. Maybe, if Sara says it now, things will change. She’s in her past, after all. She could say, _I love you, don’t ever leave me_ , and Ava would never need to know about 2213 or what Rip did.

     Her phone buzzes. It’s in her back pocket, too, so Sara feels it straight away. Shit, not now.

     Ava pulls back and says, “Your phone.”

     “Ignore it,” Sara says. She leans up, chest arching, to try and find Ava’s mouth again.   

     “No, really,” Ava says. “If it’s your team, it’s okay. I don’t mind.” She sits back on her heels and now Sara has no excuses left.

     She pulls the phone out of her pocket, presses it to her ear and says, “Yeah, what?”

     Zari says, _“Sara, Constantine is being really, really weird.”_

     “Why is that my problem?”

     _“It’s not my fault, but he opened some sort of a portal and now there’s, like, hell-beasts? On the ship?”_

     For fuck’s sake. “Okay, I’m on my way,” Sara says. “Try not to die.” She hangs up and sighs. Ava is looking really fucking beautiful too, her hair mussed from Sara’s hands and her lips red and her eyes wide.

     “What’s happened now?” Ava asks, and to her credit, she only barely sounds annoyed.

     “Portal to hell opened on the ship, apparently.” Sara shrugs. “You know how it is. I can’t leave them alone for five minutes.”

     “Do you want me to come and help?”

     “No,” Sara says, “it’s fine. I shouldn’t even have invited myself over like this.”

     “I don’t mind.”

     “I know.” Sara gets up off the couch and Ava follows suit, ever the gracious host. “Thank you for giving me a break, though. I needed that. I didn’t realise how much.”

     “Be careful, okay?”

     “Yeah,” Sara says. “I’m always careful.”

     She kisses Ava again at the front door and swallows down the words which try to fight their way out of her throat. _I’m sorry. I miss you. I love you._ Instead she says, “I’ll see you soon.”

     “Oh, definitely,” Ava says.

     Sara waits until the apartment door has swung closed behind her and then she plods heavily down the stairs towards where she’d parked the jumpship.


	4. Chapter 4

**EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
**MAY 2018**

     “It’s time travel,” Ava says.

     Little Sara says, “Oh,” and then, “So it’s not that hard to explain.”

     “What?”

     “You said it was really, really hard to explain. But it’s not. Just time travel.”

     “ _Just_ time travel?”

     “Sure,” Sara says. “Everyone knows about time travel. Plus, I jumped through a weird glowing portal to get here.” She shrugs, shoulders moving inside her blankets and hands wrapped around her mug of tea. “It’s not exactly the craziest thing that’s happened lately.”

     Ava stares at her. “Okay.”

     “What year is this?”

     “Twenty-eighteen.”

     “So I’m, like…” Sara pauses, and Ava can practically see the calculations inside her head.

     “Thirty.”

     “Whoa. Thirty? Seriously? I’m _old._ ”

     Ava almost snaps at her for that, because thirty isn’t _old_ for Sara, it’s just that eleven is ridiculously, unimaginably young. Her face is so babyish; cheekbones hidden under puppy fat, a pointed little chin, eyes wide and round, her teeth too large and a little crooked. But there’s also a hard set to her shoulders and a cynical glint in her eyes which makes her look a lot like the Sara that Ava knows. She’s actually surprised she hadn’t seen it earlier.

     “As soon as you’ve finished your tea and soup and I’m sure that you’re not going to freeze to death, I’m sending you back,” Ava tells her. “You don’t need to worry.”

     “Do you have to?”

     “Yes. It’s my job.”

     “What, hunting down time travellers?”

     “Sort of.”

     “That’s a weird job,” Sara says. She slurps down a spoonful of soup. “I don’t want to go back.”

     Ava frowns. “Why not?”

     “I told you about Lacey and them.”

     “I’ll open a window close to your home. You’ll be fine.”

     Sara frowns down at her bowl. “A window?”

     “A time window.”

     “This really is your job, huh?”

     “Yes,” Ava says. “It really is.” And she’s already spent too much time on this one aspect of the job. Even though it’s Sara - _Sara,_ but a tiny, half-complete version of her - this is just an anachronism like any other. Ava needs to fix it and move on.

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY/STARLING CITY**  
**MAY 2018/OCTOBER 1999**

     When they prepare to open the window, Sara is wearing one of Ava’s puffer jackets. It goes down to her knees, and her bloodstained soccer socks are just visible underneath.

     “Right,” Ava says. “We’ll step straight through, you’ll go into the house, and then I’ll leave.” She leaves out the part where she’s going to flash Sara’s memory as soon as the girl is safely in 1999.

     Sara crosses her arms, looking down at the ground. “Okay.”

     Ava puts a hand on Sara’s shoulder, but the girl shrugs it off. It doesn’t matter, Ava thinks. She’s a kid. She probably doesn’t want affection, or guidance, or… whatever Ava’s trying to provide. This is stupid. It’s an anachronism, not a babysitting gig.

      The window slides open in front of them, crisp white edges outlining a dark, rainy street.

      “Go ahead,” Ava says.

     There’s only a split-second where Sara hesitates. The girl almost as fearless as the woman, she forges ahead quickly, stepping through the window with one hand outstretched to feel her way. Ava follows, hand slipping into her pocket and closing around the mind-wipe device. She feels a kind of relief, knowing that it’s nearly over. As weird as this day has been - the anachronism jumping up and down levels, a miniature Sara, Ava calling _real_ Sara like an idiot - it’s going to wrap up just like any other mission. Clean and simple and-

     “Hey,” Sara says.

     “What?” Ava’s fingers tighten on the device.

     “That’s me.”

     Ava thinks she can hear brakes screeching inside her head. “ _What?_ ”

     “That’s me,” Sara repeats, and this time she points. And yes, sure enough, there’s another little blond girl on the sidewalk opposite them. Same height, same build, same walk. Same Sara.

     Ava bites back a swearword and grabs Sara’s shoulder, hard, pulling her away. “Don’t let her see you.”

     “Uh, okay?”

     They back up behind a small cluster of bushes on a neighbour’s front lawn. Ava crouches down and looks up at Sara.

     “You told me the wrong date,” she says.

     “No, I didn’t.” Sara props her hands on her hips, glaring. Even pint-sized, she looks fierce. “Maybe you opened your window wrong.”

     “I didn’t,” Ava says, and then pauses. She pushes her sleeve up and looks at her courier. “Thursday, October twenty-eighth, nineteen-ninety-nine?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Are you _sure?_ ”

     “One hundred percent,” Sara says. “Because I know it was a Thursday since I had soccer training, and I know Halloween is going to be on Sunday, and I know it was after the twenty-fifth, which was a Monday, and I didn’t go to school that day.”

     Ava stares at her. “I’m not sure I even knew the difference between _day_ and _date_ when I was eleven,” she says, and then remembers, sharply and painfully, that she never was eleven. It didn’t happen. It’s a facsimile inside her mind that Rip created.

     “Well, I remember important dates,” Sara says. “Like Halloween.”

     “And the twenty-fifth?”

     Something dark comes over Sara’s face. There’s a lost kind of hurt in her eyes which Ava recognises. The girl turns away without speaking, and Ava knows better than to push the question any further. Quietly, they watch through the bushes as the other Sara skips up the front path of her house, knocks on the door and, when it swings open, disappears inside.

     “Now what?”

     “Well,” Ava says, “you can’t go in while she’s in there.”

     “Okay.”

     Ava sighs through her nose. “Come on. I’ll take you somewhere safe while I figure this out.”

     “Where are we going?”

     “To my work.”

     “Oh.” Sara shrugs. “Cool.”

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**TEMPORAL ZONE**  
**???**

     “What is this stuff?” Sara asks, pulling one of her feet up. Sticky black threads stretch from the underside of her boot down to the gooey puddle on the floor. “Demon guts?”

     “Something like that,” Constantine says. “You’d probably rather not know.”

     Sara rolls her eyes. “You’re such an asshole.”

     “Look, love, this kind of mistake can happen to anyone.”

     “The kind of mistake where you release a multi-headed giant purple snake onto my timeship?”

     “Well… yes.”

     “Clean this shit up,” Sara says, “and then we’re dropping you off somewhere. Pick a destination.”

     Without waiting for a reply, she slides her feet out of her boots, steps delicately past the black mess, over the slack coils of the monster’s dead body, and past one of many decapitated heads out of the kitchen.

     Nate is in the corridor holding two more heads. “Hey,” he says when he sees Sara, “where do you want me to put these?”

     “Dude, I don’t know.”

     “Okay, but they’re leaking,” Nate says, “so it’s kind of urgent.”

     “I just want them off the ship. Can’t you and Gideon work something out?”

     “Yeah, I guess.” Nate frowns down at his hands and then his face clears. “Oh, I’ve got it. I’ll ask Rory.”

     Sara considers ordering him not to try and burn the damn snake heads, but she’s exhausted and sore and it just feels like too much effort right now. Instead she says, “Sure, whatever,” and brushes past.

     The ship definitely looks the worse for wear. There’s gunk splattered up walls and a couple of inconveniently placed holes in the floor. Wally skids through the mess and comes to an unsteady halt in front of Sara.

     “Hey,” he says, bouncing on his toes. “There are snake heads, like, everywhere.”

     “I know. Nate’s dealing with it.”

     “Oh, right.” That irrepressible grin spreads over Wally’s face and he says, “I’ll go help him.”

     “Yeah, good idea.” Sara takes a step past then stops and turns around and opens her mouth to ask-

     He’s gone and she sighs. Speedster problems. Wally’s a good kid, but he’s a little _too_ powerful - there’s something about it which makes Sara uncomfortable. It’s like he isn’t quite balanced enough. All the meditation and shit still hasn’t stopped him from acting the kid. And it’s fine, she likes him, but there’s a time and a place for everything and one day Wally’s attitude is going to make him a liability.

     Jeez, Sara’s getting old. She can’t believe she even just thought the _word_ ‘liability’. Her whole damn team is a liability.

     She stops at the door to the med bay and pokes her head around the frame. Zari’s awake, so Sara steps inside.

     “Are you okay?”

     “Peachy,” Zari says through gritted teeth.

     “At least we got the head off,” Sara says, stepping closer to the chair.

     “Yeah, now it’s just the fangs. Hooray.”

     If she’s being sarcastic, she can’t be too badly hurt. Still, Sara takes a minute to lean in and look at the raw holes in Zari’s shoulder. They’re clean now, at least, spilling red blood instead of the weird blue venom that the snake had been spitting. Cycling the venom out of Zari’s system had been top priority. Once it’s completely gone, Gideon will start knitting the wounds shut.

     Sara touches Zari’s hand. “See if you can get some sleep.”

     “Yeah.”

     “Tell Gideon if you need anything.”

     “I know.”

     There isn’t anything else Sara can think of to say, so she squeezes Zari’s hand and then heads out. She’ll check back in later, she decides. It had been a nasty wound and none of them had been nearby when it had happened. Sara had just caught the scream echoing down the corridors. She’s never heard a sound like that from Zari before.

     Outside her room, Sara runs a hand through her hair and it comes back sticky with blood and slime. She groans. She’d been intending to call Ava again - the Ava from the right time - and try to figure out what’s going on. But there’s a ship full of mess to clean up, Constantine to supervise, Zari to worry about and now her hair to wash.

     “For fuck’s sake,” Sara mumbles to herself, and she walks past her room towards the bathroom. She only makes it halfway there before clouds of smoke start drifting into the corridor. Sara doesn’t hesitate, just turns on her heel and launches into a run. “ _Nate!_ ” she yells. “Are you fucking _kidding me?!_ ”

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
**MAY 2018**

     “Wow,” little Sara says. “This is so cool!”

     Ava glances over her shoulder. “Don’t get left behind.”

     Sara jogs to catch up. “This place is huge! Look at all the stuff! Is that a dinosaur?”

     “Er. Yes. A small one.”

     “How many people work here?”

     “Four hundred sixty two,” Ava says.

     “How do you just know that?”

     “I have a good memory.”

     Sara spins a slow circle while she walks, eyes wide. “Who’s that guy?”

     Ava looks. “A knight, obviously. With his… horse.” She rolls her eyes as they pass the animal. She has a soft spot for horses in particular, but it’s against protocol to have them on this level. “Peterson!” she calls. “Animals go separately.”

     “Yes, Director Sharpe.”

     Sara skips a few steps to keep up with Ava’s longer legs. “Are you a Director?”

     “Yes.”

     “What’s that mean?”

     “I’m in charge.”

     “Oh.” Sara thinks about it. “Cool. What’s that guy carrying?”

     Ava looks. “The Stone Tablets, I think. He really should be wearing gloves.”

     They ascend a set of stairs, brushing past an angry man in robes who is yelling in Greek at the agents shepherding him. Up again, past the cafeteria, past the library, up more stairs, and finally into the corridor leading to Ava’s office.

     She’s almost made it inside when a young woman in a neatly pressed suit jogs up from the other end of the corridor. Ava steps smartly in front of Sara.

     “Director Sharpe,” the agent says, “they need you in conference three.”

     “Why?” Ava asks.

     “There’s some sort of an argument about a tapestry.”

     “That’s fine,” Ava says. “I’ll be there soon. I just need to-”

     “Oh,” the agent - Ava thinks her name is Emily - says. “Is that an anachronism? Do you want me to drop it off for you?”

     Ava turns and looks at _it._ Sara hasn’t bothered hiding, and she’s standing by Ava’s side staring at the agent.

     “Actually,” Ava says, “this is my, um, niece.” She reaches out a hand to grab for Sara’s shoulder. Sara dodges out of the way - because _of course_ she does - but Ava’s fingers just brush the girl’s t-shirt. She grips the fabric tightly and hauls Sara in close to her. “I’m just going to drop her off in my office.”

     “I didn’t realise you had a niece,” Emily says. “I didn’t even know you had a sister.”

     “Yes, well,”  Ava says, and leaves it at that. The lie is giving her a headache and she presses two fingers to her temple. “I’ll head down to the conference room as soon as I’ve settled her into my office. Would you go ahead and tell them I’ll be right there?”

     “Sure,” Emily says. She smiles at Sara. “Nice to meet you.”

     Sara twists angrily away from Ava as soon as Emily has gone. “What did you grab me like that for?” she demands.

     “You couldn’t have just stayed behind me?”

     “I didn’t know it was some kind of big secret that I was here,” Sara retorts, folding her arms over her chest. “I’m not your niece.”

     Ava grinds her teeth together. “I’m well aware, thank you.”

     “So what’s the big deal? I thought you all knew about stuff getting lost in time.”

     “We do,” Ava says. “You’re different.”

     “Why? Because I was already home when we went back?”

     “Yes, and… other reasons.” Ava pushes open the door to her office. “If I leave you in here, are you going to run off?”

     “Depends,” Sara says.

     “On what?”

     “What’ll you give me?”

     That smirk looks familiar, and so does the cocked hip and the raised eyebrows. The kind of look which tells Ava that Sara knows she’s going to get exactly what she wants, and she’s happy about it.

     “Whatever you want,” Ava says, and then quickly adds, “ _within reason_.”

     “All I have to do is stay in this room?”

     “That’s right. And don’t talk to anyone. And if you do have to talk to anyone, say that you’re my niece. And that your name is…” shit, Ava suddenly can’t think of a single name other than Sara. She wracks her brains, because surely there are other names, but none of them pop into her head. Not when she’s staring at her ex-girlfriend in miniature, tiny and feisty and so undeniably _Sara._

“Lyra.”

     “What?”

     “Like from Star Wars.”

     That doesn’t sound right to Ava, but she’s also not convinced that she’s ever watched Star Wars all the way to the end - in either her real memories or her fake ones - so she says, “Uh, sure,” and gestures to the office chair. “You can sit over there.”

     “Do you have, like, comics?”

     “No, but you can play on my computer.”

     “Computers are boring,” Sara says.

     “Not in the future, they aren’t. Look.” Ava leans forward, one arm over each of Sara’s shoulders, to tap in her password. She’s very aware of Sara sitting stiffly beneath her, tense and alert. She really _doesn’t_ like being touched, and it’s weird, because that’s not something Ava’s ever associated with Sara. It’s all slaps on the back and rubbing arms and squeezing shoulders. Little things, but none of them have ever come naturally to Ava. She just doesn’t think to reach out.

     She sets Sara up with a handful of the basic, built-in games, turns off the WiFi, makes sure all of her folders are password protected, and then hurries out of the office. The corridors Ava moves through are mostly full, which she considers a good sign. It means the Bureau is running smoothly and efficiently, the way it’s supposed to.

     “I thought you were sick,” someone says to Ava as she passes.

     She doesn’t pause to look at their face. “I’m better, thanks,” she returns, and keeps going, hoping that’ll deflect any further questions. Obviously social interactions weren’t one of the abilities Ava was _programmed_ with, because she’s never enjoyed them or found them easy.

     The argument in conference three is loud enough that Ava can hear it through the glass walls when she’s still several feet away. She groans and drops her chin into her chest, taking a moment to collect herself. Pushing away thoughts of Sara (and what she might have gotten up to in the office alone by now). Focusing back on the task at hand. She’s the Director. She’s in charge. She’s going to go in there, shut them all up, solve their problems and get back to solving her own.

     “Piece of cake,” Ava tells herself, and then she straightens up, throws back her shoulders, lifts her chin and walks right in.


	5. Chapter 5

**EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
 **MAY 2018**

     “So what does it say about me?” Sara asks, drumming her heels against the drawers under Ava’s desk.

     “Nothing.” Ava sighs. “It says that you’re exactly where you should be, at home in ninety-nine, and you’re going to grow up and become a huge pain in my ass just like you’re supposed to.”

     Sara kicks her legs harder. “I thought we were friends in the future.”

     “We are,” Ava says. “Most of the time.” She reaches a hand out and catches one of Sara’s feet. “Can you stop doing that?”

     “So _rree_.” Sara drags the word out, rolling her eyes. She slides down from the desk and says, “I’m not at home, though.”

     “No.”

     “Your computer is broken.”

     “It’s not,” Ava says. “It’s something about you.”

     Sara looks down at her feet, digging the toe of her shoe into the carpet. “What’s wrong with me?”

     Suddenly she sounds like a little girl - vulnerable and frightened - and Ava quickly says, “Nothing, Sara. Nothing’s wrong with you. It’s just a complicated situation, okay?”

     “Yeah,” Sara says. It’s a thoroughly unconvincing word.

     “We’ll figure this out,” Ava says. “It might just take a little bit longer than I thought.” She drops her eyes to the courier at her wrist and sees that the anachronism which is little Sara is still a steady Level 5. Whatever _that_ means.

     “How long?”

     “I don’t know.”

     “Do I have to stay here?” Sara asks. “Like one of those other time-travelling freaks?”

     _Freaks_ is a bit harsh, Ava thinks. On the other hand, she’s got a purpling bruise on her shin after being kicked by an angry Italian peasant on the way back to her office, so maybe Sara’s got a point.

     “I’m supposed to put you into the system here,” Ava says. “To make sure you’re safe.”

     Sara hunches her shoulders, shoving her hands down into her pockets. “Okay,” she says. She won’t look at Ava.

     This is stupid, Ava thinks. She’s being stupid. She doesn’t even _like_ children.

     When Sara had called it off between the two of them, weeks ago, there’d been this cold distance in her face and Ava can’t forget the way it had looked. The way it had felt, inside her, some part of her emptying out and closing off.

     “This might be a special circumstance,” Ava says reluctantly. “You can stay with me.”

     Little Sara still doesn’t look up, but she says, very quietly, “Thanks.”

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
 **MAY 2018**

     Sara’s absolutely sure she’s hit the right month this time. It’s May, she’s in Star City, it’s dark and damp and freezing as fuck on the sidewalk outside the Time Bureau. This has to be it. All she’s gotta do is walk in there, find Ava, and demand to know what the hell is going on.

     She takes two steps towards the door and stops still. There’s a woman standing there, peering in through the glass, her posture as intimately familiar to Sara as the long dark hair spilling down her back and the short sword sheathed at her side.

     Sara says, “Oh my god. Nyssa?”

     Nyssa turns. There’s a scar on her face which is new and it aches somewhere inside Sara, wondering how it got there. “Sara Lance,” Nyssa says flatly.

     “Are you okay? What are you doing here?”

     “Am I _okay?_ ”

     There’s a pause, a broken moment where Sara suddenly realises that they’re not on the same wavelength. Not remotely. Whatever’s going on here, it seems to be slightly more complicated than just Nyssa turning up outside the Time Bureau.

     And then the sword whips out and Nyssa tries to _stab_ her and Sara realises that this is a fuck-ton more complicated than she’d thought.

     Nyssa doesn’t fight the way Sara remembers. It’s a time travel issue, she assumes, and probably that’s where the new scar comes from, too. Hopefully there’s a simple reason why Nyssa’s trying to murder her which can be explained with a quick hop to the future. Somehow Sara doesn’t think so.

     She plays defence for a while, backing off after each sword thrust, dodging to the side, saying, “Hey, wait a second,” when she gets the chance. Nyssa doesn’t wait any seconds. She just attacks, aggressive and determined but vastly less disciplined than she usually is.

     It’s a weird fight, uncomfortable and strained and full of things that are just _wrong._ Nyssa won’t use her left hand properly. She keeps dropping her shoulder to try and get around Sara, except that’s not the kind of thing that Nyssa does. She doesn’t need to go for the unprotected back of an opponent. Nyssa kills face-to-face. None of this feels right.

     “Okay,” Sara says, “okay. Calm down, would you?” She holds up her hands, palms out. “We can talk about this.”

     Nyssa lashes out again and Sara swears and jumps back. This is exhausting. She can’t keep dodging this insane, unprovoked attack forever. She’s still tired from spending yesterday killing the purple snake-demon. Her right shoulder has stiffened up overnight and tendrils of pain have crept out into her back and neck.

     No more playing defence. Sara drops her arms to her sides, opening up her chest. She waits for Nyssa to take the bait. And then she strikes.

     Nyssa thrusts with the sword and Sara steps sideways, then reaches in and grabs Nyssa’s wrist tightly, her fingers digging in and finding the soft spots and the nerves hidden beneath the taut muscles and tight ligaments.

     The sword drops to the sidewalk and Nyssa pulls her hand back, trying to shake off the numbness. She rubs her fingers and stares at Sara.

     Sara bends to pick up the sword. “Now will you listen to me?” she asks.

     “Kill me if you wish,” Nyssa says, her chin high and her voice hardly trembling. “Someone else will complete my mission.”

     “Nyss, I’m not going to kill you. And what mission?” Are those tears in her eyes? Sara stares. She’s almost never seen Nyssa cry. She’s certainly never seen Nyssa fall for the old nerve-cluster-in-the-wrist trick. And there’s no fight left in the other woman’s body. Her shoulders drop and her arms sag like her strings have been cut.

     Nyssa just looks at her. Flat, sad, and tired. She’s so _vulnerable_. Sara hates seeing her like this. It hurts - actually hurts, because she loves Nyssa. Some part of her will always love Nyssa.

     Sara sighs, reverses the sword in her hand and holds it out, hilt first.

     Comprehension shines through Nyssa’s face. She takes the sword. “You’re another one,” she says. “Another Sara.”

     “I don’t-”

     “This isn’t my world.”

     Suddenly Sara gets it. The scar, the fragility, the strange, clumsy way of fighting. This isn’t Nyssa. This isn’t _her_ Nyssa. It’s someone else.

     “You’re from another Earth,” she says. “Like Alex and Wells.”

     “Who?”

     “It doesn’t matter,” Sara says quickly. This isn’t the time for long explanations. “What are you doing here?”

     “I thought I breached time, not space. I made a mistake.”

     “You tried to _kill_ me, Nyssa. Far out.”

     Nyssa hasn’t sheathed her sword. She holds it point-down, though. Not threatening. “What are we here? Allies?”

     “Uh, yeah. Duh.”

     “It’s different for me,” Nyssa says, looking at her feet. She presses her lips together, hard, and then she steps backwards. “I need to leave.”

     “Whoa, wait a second. Where are you going?”

     “I can’t stay here.”

     “Okay,” Sara says. “Let me help you.”

     “I don’t want your help,” Nyssa snarls.

     “Yeah, whatever. Where do you need to go? Where’s home?” Sara frowns, thinking about it. “We call this Earth One. I have a friend who can open breaches, you know.”

     “I don’t need your help.”

     “Okay, but-”

     “No!”

     The word is fast and sharp and forceful enough to have Sara taking a pace back. She stands and watches as Nyssa turns her back and walks away. There’s a roll to her gait which speaks of old injuries. Her head hangs low and the sword is heavy in her hand. Sara wonders what kind of torment could crush the spark out of this other Nyssa so effectively. Her Nyssa - the real Nyssa - she never gives up. Not ever.

     Sara watches until she can’t see the other woman anymore, and then she turns around, hands in her pockets, to look up at the Time Bureau.

     Ava is standing in front of the side door. Sara recognises the ramrod straight posture and the stern blond bun and she darts forward, grabbing at Ava’s elbow.

     “Hey!”

     Ava turns around and pulls her arm free. “Hey yourself,” she says, frowning.

     “What’s going on?” Sara asks. “I saw that kid when you called me.”

     Ava’s eyes go wide. “Yes,” she says slowly. “Um. Well, you see, it’s Time Bureau business.”

     “Are you kidding me?”

     “Sorry,” Ava says, not sounding remotely sorry. “Also, I have to go. I’m very busy.” She turns away from Sara and starts walking again.

     “Ava!” Sara yells.

     “Don’t call me that,” Ava snaps, and then she swipes her card to open the door and steps inside the Bureau.

     Sara stares after her. “What the fuck?”

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
 **MAY 2018**

     Ava pushes the clothes into Sara’s hands. “They might be a little big on you,” she says. “The bathroom is just down there.”

     “Your apartment is really small.”

     “I don’t need a lot of space to eat and sleep.”

     “I guess,” Sara says, and then sets off down the hall.

     Ava bends back down to finish tucking the edges of the sheet around the sofa. She’s already feeling stressed at the thought of little Sara staying here for longer than a night or two. This is a situation that’s _so far_ beyond the usual parameters of Ava’s behaviour. She’s breaking Time Bureau protocols. She’s breaking the rules. It’s not what she does - not at all.

     Sara has always been Ava’s only exception.

     The little girl comes out of the bathroom wearing one of Ava’s old sleep t-shirts and a pair of boxer shorts. “They’re falling down, kinda,” she says, hand clenched in the waistband of the shorts.

     “Hang on.” Ava gets up from her knees and opens the drawer of the dresser where she keeps hair elastics. She grabs one and then reaches out to wind it around the boxers.

     Sara pulls the elastic out of Ava’s hand. “I can do it,” she says, bunching the shorts and wrapping the elastic around them.

     Ava watches. “So,” she says, starting slowly. “What’s your dad like?”

     It should be an easy enough question. Sara - the _adult_ Sara - had told Ava enough about her relationship with her father. Ava knows that it was a good, healthy relationship, tainted only by the tragedies of the last decade. Sara loved him.

     But _this_ Sara clams up straight away at the question. She folds her arms over her chest and draws in to herself and mutters, “I dunno. He’s okay, I guess.”

     She never makes it easy. Ava sighs, grabs the pillow from the floor and tosses it onto the couch. “There you go.”

     “I can sleep here?” Sara asks. She crawls onto the couch and sits criss-cross.

     “Yes. You can lie down now, if you like,” Ava says, “and I’ll just go and do some work in my bedroom.”

     Sara reaches down for the soft grey blanket at the end of the bed. “Okay.”

     “Okay,” Ava repeats.

    

     The Time Bureau’s system still stubbornly refuses to shed any light on the situation. Ava checks every possibility that she can think of - a different time, a different place, even a different Sara - and gets nothing. She can’t find any gap in history where this child could possibly be missing from.

     The anachronism on her courier is pinging at a Level 5, so nothing’s changed there. This is ridiculous. Ava has absolutely no idea what to do beyond turning Sara in at work - and then what? It’s not like there’s any higher-ups for her to ask. Ava is the highest-up that it gets. She’s the ultimate authority.

     God, she _hates_ not knowing what to do.

     There’s a rustle at the door and Ava swivels in her chair to find Sara standing there, grey blanket draped over her shoulders.

     “Can’t sleep?” Ava asks.

     Sara shrugs. “You can come and work in the lounge, if you want,” she says. “I don’t mind.”

     Ava shakes her head. “I’m fine here,” she says, turning back to the computer. “My laptop needs to charge anyway.” Out of the corner of her eye, she catches the disappointment on Sara’s little face. Her mind replays the girl’s words. Had that been a veiled request? Does Sara actually _want_ her out there?

     “Okay,” Sara says.

     Ava stands up fast. Her knee bangs the underside of the desk and she winces. “Um. Sara. You can… stay in here, if you want? While I’m working? You can just sit on the bed.”

     “It’s okay,” Sara says stiffly. “I don’t have to.”

     “I should probably keep an eye on you anyway. You know - because it’s my job?”

     “Oh. Yeah.” Sara crawls up onto the bed and sits with her knees up to her chest. “I’ll sit here.”

     Ava tucks her chin into her chest to hide her smile. “Good.”

 

     Two hours later, Ava finally closes the lid of the laptop and stretches her arms over her head, working the kinks out of her neck and back. She turns to check on Sara and finds the girl asleep, sprawled like a starfish on her stomach, arms and legs flung wide to the far corners of the bed.

     Ava heaves out a long sigh. She spreads the blankets over Sara carefully, making sure both feet are covered, and then she grabs her pyjamas and leaves the bedroom quietly. The door can stay open, in case the girl needs anything. And Ava can sleep on the couch.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter there's a lot of skipping around and I incorporate some Earth-11 story that I had WAY too much fun working out. I'm not sure how well it'll all work, so let me know how you're finding it! Confusing? Too confusing? Not confusing enough? Necessary? Unnecessary? WHO KNOWS. (You guys do, that's who! Tell me!)
> 
> As always thanks for comments and kudos and reading, everyone who reads things is awesome, and I hope someone presents you all with a beautifully knitted pineapple-themed woollen hat tomorrow. 
> 
> Oh, and sorry if the formatting gets messed up again. That keeps happening!

**EARTH 11**  
**STARLING CITY**  
**OCTOBER 2012**

     Oliver’s seen a lot over the past five years. A lot of destruction. A lot of death. He’d started to think that he was desensitised to it all. The pain, the violence, the chaos - it can’t touch him anymore. But this blood-coated room is making him sick to his stomach.

     There are only two bodies on the floor. They’re both small. It’s hard to imagine that they ever contained this much blood. The boy has a ragged hole in his chest and his throat has been cut. The heart is missing. Whoever he was, someone wanted to be absolutely sure he was dead. The woman is sprawled across him, the ends of her long blond hair trailing in a red puddle. She’d been trying to protect the child, Oliver assumes. Her wounds are less personal. Two to the chest, one to the head. Bullet wounds. She’d gone down fast.

     “She was the mother?” Oliver asks.   

     “That’s right.” Digg’s got his hands propped on his hips, a deep crease between his eyebrows. “They’d only been in the bunker a month.”

     “Who else knows about this?”

     “Only Nyssa.”

     “Good,” Oliver says. “Let’s keep it that way. We don’t want a panic if people think they aren’t safe down here.”

     “That’s the truth though, isn’t it? They aren’t safe?”

     Oliver sighs. “This was personal. Look at them, Digg. Someone knew they’d be here. They knew enough to bring a gun and go for the mother first, then take a knife to the kid. That’s not a robot. That’s a mecho.”

     “If it’s happened once, it can happen again.”

     “Do we have the CCTV of the attack?”

     “Not in the room,” Digg says. “Outside it, though.”

     “And?”

     “It looks like a human.”

     Oliver nods. He hadn’t expected anything else. “See?” he says. “Mecho. Robot lover.” 

     “So what do we do about it?” Digg asks.

     “Find out why, for a start.” Oliver looks away from the bodies. They’re starting to burn into his brain, a vision that’ll reappear behind his eyelids when he tries to sleep tonight. “If a mecho went to all the trouble to infiltrate the bunker and kill these two - just these two - there’s gotta be a reason. Who were they?”

     There’s a moment’s silence while Digg checks his tablet. The iron smell of blood hangs heavy in the air. Oliver tries to breathe only through his mouth.

     “The boy was Alexander,” Diggle says. “He was five.”

     It’s not a name that means anything to Oliver. “And the mother?”

     “Felicity. Felicity Smoak.”

     “That’s all?”

     “That’s all.”

     “No father?”

     “Not listed.”

     “The boy’s surname? Smoak as well?”

     Digg taps at the screen a few times. “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s just blank on the database. Like it’s been erased.”

     “They would’ve had to fill out the forms when they moved in, just like everybody else.” Oliver drums his fingers against his leg. “There has to be a paper copy somewhere. Find it.”

     “All right,” Diggle says.

     “I’ll lock down the corridor,” Oliver adds. “Nyssa will help you dispose of the bodies. We don’t need anybody else finding out about this.”

     “And the mecho?”

     Oliver shrugs. “I’ve tangled with a few of them over the past two months. Show me the CCTV footage. I’ll see if I recognise this bastard.”

     “It was a woman,” Digg says.

     “A woman?”

     “Blond. Athletic.”

     A blond, female mecho. The list of suspects in Oliver’s head shrinks abruptly down to one name. “It’s Lance. Again. _Shit_.”

**EARTH 1**  
**TEMPORAL ZONE**  
**???**

     “Wait, duck!” Ray says.

     Sara drops to the floor. She hears the whistle of displaced air as something sharp and fast passes above her. Breathing hard, she rolls onto her back, watches as the blade whizzes over her for a second time, and then vaults up to her feet.

     “What is that thing?”

     “It’s like a yo-yo,” Ray says.

     Sara doesn’t want to take her eyes off the hooded black figure at the end of the corridor, so she doesn’t turn and stare at Ray, but she says, “What the fuck?”

     “The way it snaps back after it’s used,” Ray explains quickly. “It goes out and back in. You know, like a yo-yo?”

     “Looks more like a giant guillotine blade on the end of a string to me,” Sara says, and then, “Move!” She jumps left and Ray goes right and they both flatten themselves to the walls as the blade snaps down and back between them.

     “I think,” Ray pants, “that my suit is in Zari’s room.”

     “What? Why?”

     “She asked me to put down cockroach traps.”

     Sara frowns. “We have cockroaches?” She crouches, hands on her knees, cringing as the blade whips over her head. Metal whines as it slides back across one of the walls.

     “Yes,” Ray says. “Anyway.” He points down the corridor behind them. “I need to go that way.”

     “Okay,” Sara says. She’s so tired. She’s exhausted. “I’ll keep it busy.”

     “Thanks,” Ray gasps, and then he pushes off the wall and runs. The blade shoots after him but for once Ray is faster, and he’s around the corner before it can catch up. Instead, the sharp metal bites into the wall at the end of the corridor and sticks there.

     Sara cracks her knuckles and looks at the dark-hooded figure. “Okay, buddy. It’s just you and me.”

     Gideon says, “Captain Lance?”

     “Yeah? What?”

     The creature at the other end of the corridor tugs on its blade chain, trying to work the weapon loose. Nada. It looks like it’s properly wedged. Gingerly, Sara creeps forward.

     “Director Sharpe is calling,” Gideon says.

     “Oh.” Sara grimaces, but she really doesn’t have time for this right now. She’s crouch-walking under the chain, moving closer and closer to whatever this thing is - some kind of demonic executioner - and she can’t hold a conversation with Ava. Not when there’s so damn much to say. Besides, she’s still angry.

     “Shall I put her on hold?” Gideon asks.

     “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Gideon, but it’s gonna take me longer than a couple minutes to deal with this thing.”

     “I’ll tell her you’ll call her back,” Gideon says smoothly.

     Sara reaches the hooded creature and balances, knees bent, on the balls of her feet. It’s not looking down at her - she’s not even sure if it has eyes anyway - and it’s still tugging angrily on the trapped blade.

     This would be a great time for some sort of quip, Sara thinks. Something funny, and clever, and sharply witty. Unfortunately she can’t think of anything. Instead, she jabs her baton _hard_ into the creature’s midsection. Apparently there is something solid under the flowing cloak, because the thing groans and doubles over.

     There’s a screech of tearing metal as the blade suddenly pulls loose and shoots back towards them. Sara dodges. The demon creature doesn’t. Caught off balance by her strike, it’s unable to move in time and the blunt end of the yo-yo blade catches it hard and knocks it to the floor.

     Finally. Some good luck. Sara steps in and grabs the blade. It’s lighter than she’d thought it would be. She holds the blunt end in both hands, the chain jangling loosely, and brings the blade down hard on the hooded creature where it lies.

     It splits evenly in half and dissolves into maggots and Sara drops the blade, exhausted, to wipe her sweaty face on her sleeve.

     Gideon says, “That only took four minutes, Captain Lance.”

     Sara rolls her eyes. “Thanks for timing it.”

     “You are most welcome.”

     “Gideon…”

     “Captain Lance?”

     Sara sighs. Their AI’s burgeoning personality isn’t the top priority on her mental list of things to worry about right now. “Never mind,” she says. “Where’s Ray?”

     “On his way to you.”

     “How’s Zari?”

     “Miss Tomaz is resting comfortably and healing as quickly as can be expected.”

     “Right. Good. And - and Ava?”

     “I said you would call her back as soon as possible.”

     “Thanks, Gideon.” Sara looks down at the pile of demon-maggots writhing on the floor, worming their way into every tiny crack and crevice. She’ll set Ray to dealing with these - he can shrink, it’ll be fine, he’ll track them all down - and Sara will go and call Ava back before the next crisis has time to arise.

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
**MAY 2018**

     “Director Sharpe!” Gary exclaims as he steps in through the office door. “I, uh - I didn’t think you were here!” It’s very late, and there’s no light on inside the office. He’d been sure that the room was empty.

     The Director raises her head and gives Gary a confused look. Or it might be an angry look - or a disappointed look. He’s not great at telling her looks apart. She almost never gives him a _pleased_ look, he knows that much.

     “What are you doing here?” she asks.

     There’s no good answer for this. Gary rubs one shoe against his leg while he tries to think of an excuse. He doesn’t want to get into why he’s here so late (his sister’s boyfriend is at their apartment, and Gary always feels so _intimidated_ by the other man) or why he’s creeping into the Director’s office (the chair in here is the most comfortable one to sit in while he slathers anti-inflammatory cream on his sprained and very swollen ankle.)

     All Gary can think of to say is, “I was just looking for you,” and then his foot catches in his trousers and he stumbles before he can stand upright again.

     Director Sharpe is right in front of him before he’s even regained his balance. “No you weren’t,” she says.

     “What?”

     “You weren’t looking for me. You said you didn’t think I was here.”

     Gary gulps. She’s even more intimidating than his sister’s boyfriend. “No, you see…” he pauses, struggles to regain his composure, and says, “What I _meant_ was-”

     The Director cuts him off, leaning right down into his face menacingly. “What do you know?” she asks him. Her voice is the calm sort of quiet that means she’s really, really mad. Gary’s seen her hit people. Even _stab_ people - although, not fatally.

     “Nothing!” he squeaks. “I don’t know anything, Agent - er, er - Director Sharpe!”

     She stares at him for a long moment. Her eyes travel back and forth, flicking between his own. Right-to-left. Gary cowers. He can’t make eye contact for long so he glances down at the Director’s chin. Then her nose. Then her forehead. There’s a thin white line cutting through one of her eyebrows, like an old scar. Gary’s never noticed it before. He tries to distract himself by wondering what sort of make-up is used to hide eyebrow scars.

     Director Sharpe points at the door. “Get out.”

     “Yes,” Gary says quickly, and he turns around hastily and runs for the door. His heart thuds unpleasantly in his chest and he feels oddly like he’s just escaped some sort of terrible danger. Which is ridiculous. Director Sharpe is a consummate professional, after all. She’s scary, sure, but she’d never actually _hurt_ Gary. Not on purpose.

     Would she?

     He stands in the corridor pondering that unsettling thought for far too long. The next thing Gary knows, the office door is swinging open again. He clamps his mouth over a yelp and ducks down behind the closest potted plant.

     Director Sharpe slips out of the dark office and looks left and right down the corridor before she closes the door behind her. Gary watches the tense set of her shoulders as she walks away. She looks unhappy, he thinks. And she was acting weird, too. Something’s going on.

     It must be the extra workload. Gary can help with that.

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
**MAY 2018**

     Sara has nightmares.

     Not every night, fortunately, because Ava’s getting too little sleep as it is. She’s been lying awake in bed with her mind whirling, a mess of thoughts churning through her head. The lack of sleep doesn’t seem to be having much of an effect on her, either. It makes Ava wonder if she even _needs_ to sleep. Maybe it’s a waste of time to even try.

     But Ava does feel tired when Sara’s screaming and thrashing wakes her. Everything is thick and groggy as she claws her way out of bed and out into the lounge. Sara’s eyes are squeezed tight. She’s kicked off the blankets and is gasping and sobbing and struggling.

     “Sara,” Ava says, bending over the girl. She touches Sara’s forehead, lightly. The girl’s head is damp with sweat. Ava puts her other hand on Sara’s shoulder and shakes her. “Wake up.”

     It takes a minute. There’s no recognition in Sara’s eyes at first, just fear and confusion. She blinks a few times, slowly. Then she looks up at Ava.

     “What happened?”

     “You were dreaming.”

     “Oh.” Sara turns her back to Ava and curls into a little ball. The knobs of her spine stick out through her shirt. She clasps her arms around her skinny legs and sinks her chin down into her chest.

     She’s very small, like this. Ava bends to pick up the blanket, shakes it out and drapes it back over the girl. “Are you okay?” she asks.

     “Mmhmm.”

     “Do you need me to stay?”

     “No,” Sara says. Her voice is thin and soft. “I’m okay.”

     Ava sits on the coffee table anyway. Tentatively, she puts a hand on Sara’s shoulder. The girl shrugs it off.

     “Sara…”

     “You don’t have to stay here,” Sara says, and she shifts away from Ava, pressing against the back of the sofa.

     The walls have gone up, and Ava has no idea how to break them down. She’s not _good_ at human connection. She’s always been clumsy at sharing, slow to pick up hints and too blunt and sharp with her words.

     Sara would know. The real Sara - Ava’s Sara. She’s so quick to laugh, easy-going and warm, giving orders which sound like suggestions and rebukes which don’t cut. And she’s a master pain in the ass.

     Ava’s called the Waverider twice and she’s gotten Gideon both times, playing answering machine for the team. The AI had been very professional about it the first time. _Captain Lance is not available right now. Can I take a message?_ It had sounded a lot like Ava, actually. The thought had made her uncomfortable, so she’d stuttered out a negative and hung up.

     The second time, Gideon had been a lot more sympathetic. _I’m sorry, Director Sharpe. I’m afraid Captain Lance is very busy. She’ll call you back._

     Except she hasn’t, and it’s been four days. Ava’s tired of trying to run to the Legends for help. They’re completely unreliable, and she’s going to have to handle this on her own.

     She’s going to have to handle everything on her own, although that knowledge is still sinking in. She’s the Director. There’s no more Bennett, no more Rip. Ava is supposed to figure out what to do.

     Rising from the couch, Ava steps quietly back into the bedroom. She hesitates for a moment with her hand on the sliding door, then leaves it open. Climbing into her bed, Ava draws the blankets up to her chest and lies on her back with her hands folded over her chest. Stiff. Unpliable. Disciplined.

     There’s a soft noise from the lounge and Ava lifts her head. With her eyes closed and her legs tense, she listens to Sara crying and feels less human than ever.  

**EARTH 11**  
**STARLIGHT CITY**  
**JANUARY 2018**

     A shuriken embeds itself in the wall beside Oliver’s head when he steps into the darkened bedroom. He rolls his eyes.

     “Nyss, do you have to?”

     “You could have been anyone,” she says.

     “Who else comes into your room in the middle of the night?” Oliver pauses. “Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

     “Why _are_ you in here, Oliver?”

     In the dim light, Ollie can just see the white shape of the bed and the dark outline that is Nyssa. She’s sitting up, probably with another throwing star in her hand.

     “We need to talk.” He tugs the shuriken out of the wall beside him - it’s not the first hole in the plaster and it won’t be the last - and steps towards the bed.

     “Kalina?” Nyssa asks, suddenly alert.

     “No, she’s fine. She’s sleeping.”

     “Like we should be,” Nyssa notes.

     Oliver drops the weapon on the blankets by Nyssa’s legs. “Imagine how awkward it would be to explain to Kalina if you missed with one of these. Sorry baby girl, I accidentally made a hole in Daddy’s head.”

     “I never miss.” There’s no pride in her voice; just a simple statement of fact.

     “Yeah,” he says. “I know. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Harrison Wells has just come out of the Box.”

     Nyssa sits up straighter. “Oh.”

     “He keeps coming back to the same thing. It’s that kid. The one who died, years ago. He’s the only one who can stop all this.”

     “Oliver, that boy was five years old when he died. How old would he be now? Eleven? Not old enough to help. Not old enough to _stop this_.” Nyssa reaches out and puts her hand on his leg, fingers squeezing just above his knee. “Haven’t you had enough of sending children out to fight our wars?”

     There’s nothing Oliver can say in response to that, because she’s right. He doesn’t believe a child could help. Not really. He can’t handle the idea of risking any more kids. He’s already brought his own daughter into this mess. Earlier today he’d sent a fourteen-year-old girl onto the surface to battle the Dominators. _Fourteen._ Because her powers make her the only one who has half a chance against them.

     The thing is, someday Oliver’s going to be dead. They’re all going to be dead - the adults, the old guard. And it’s going to be the kids who are still left fighting unless they can stop this now. Shut down the robots. Destroy the aliens. Take back the planet.

     So, not a big deal at all, really.

     “You know how Harrison’s stupid helmet works,” he says. “He puts on the helmet, he sees the future. Simple as that.”

     “He sees _one_ future.”

     “It’s a good future, Nyss. It’s the kind of future I want. It’s the future Kalina deserves.”

     There’s a long, long silence. It’s cold down here. Oliver can feel gooseflesh rising on his arms. He can see the flicker of Nyssa’s eyelashes as she blinks, and the long, dark sweep of her hair against her skin.

     “Tell me what Harrison wants me to do.”

     That’s a concession. Ollie breathes a long sigh of relief. “He says there’s a breach coming. A few months from now, maybe. It’ll take you into the past.”

     “How far into the past?”

     “He doesn’t know. But it will be far enough back for you to save the boy.”

     “And how am I supposed to do that? Follow him around? Play bodyguard to an infant?”

     Oliver shrugs. “Kill the mecho.”

     “You say that as though it’s something easy.”

     “It is,” he assures her. “Lance was the only one back then who could ever make it over the threshold of the bunker. She beat the security systems over and over again. She was the fastest, the strongest, the smartest.”

     Nyssa sniffs. “Maybe you should have married her instead.”

     “All you have to do is take her out of the equation. That’s it, Nyss. It’s that simple. Just kill Sara Lance.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, it's been a while, I know. Hey how much fun is the new season of Legends tho? Loving it :D

**EARTH 11**  
**NEAR STARLING CITY**  
 **OCTOBER 1998**

     “Stop it,” Laurel says, twisting around in the passenger seat to glare at Sara.

     “What? I didn’t do anything.”

     “You’re kicking the back of my seat.”

     “I’m not,” Sara says, even though that’s undeniably what she’s been doing for the past ten minutes. But it’s not her fault. She’s _bored_ , and Mom and Laurel have been talking about Laurel’s stupid history project for the whole drive. Sara had even called shotgun, but Laurel is twelve and apparently that means that calling shotgun doesn’t count.

     “Stop!” Laurel insists. “Mom, tell her to stop.”

     “Sara, don’t kick the seats.”

     “I’m not kicking them!” Sara slumps back and stares out the window. Mom always takes Laurel’s side. Outside it’s dark and cold, and trees whizz past, black strokes against the paler grey sky. Rain drums on the roof and the windscreen wipers squeak on every downstroke. They’ll get home in time for dinner, and Sara hopes Dad has made his pasta carbonara because that’s really good. Plus, it’ll just be nice to be home. They’d spent a week out in the cabin and after seven whole days Sara is really sick of her sister. She’s even kinda sick of Mom.

     Mom and Laurel have stopped talking, and there’s a moment of almost-silence in the car, just rain and the growl of the engine and the soft music on the radio. Sara can make out the song now, and she hears, _my loneliness is killin’ me_ and that’s enough for her to know what song it is.

     “Oh, Mom, turn it up. I like this song!”

     “You don’t even know what song it is,” Laurel snaps. “You’re just trying to be annoying.”

     “I’m not! It’s by Britney _Spears_ , so _there,_ ” Sara says, and she unbuckles her seatbelt and wriggles forward, leaning over the centre console to twist the volume knob.

     “Sara, put your seatbelt on,” Mom says.

     Laurel brushes Sara’s hand away and turns the volume back down. “Stop it, Sara.”

     “Can’t I just listen to one song?” Sara grabs the volume again, twisting it way up, and Britney Spears bellows, _GIVE ME A SIIIIIIGN._

     “Sara!” Mom yells, turning towards her.

     There’s a blaring horn and a bright light hits Sara’s eyes. She winces and pulls back and the car shudders around her and then bounces, bounces… her head hits the roof.

     It feels like no time has passed but somehow when Sara opens her eyes the car is upside-down and Laurel is screaming. Sara is crumpled on the roof, which is now the floor. She sits up, slowly. Mom and Laurel are hanging upside-down. There’s hardly any light, and Mom and Laurel are just darker shadows.

     “Mom?”

     “It’s okay, Sara,” Mom says.

     Sara’s legs are wet. She has a moment where she’s irrationally concerned that she’d peed herself, but then she realises it must be blood and her stomach clenches. Who’s bleeding?

     “Mom, are you okay?”

     “I’m okay.”

     Laurel is sobbing something. Words that Sara doesn’t understand. Mom reaches over to tug at the clasp of Laurel’s seatbelt, but it won’t unbuckle. The wetness laps at Sara’s knees and she puts her hands into it. It’s cold. There’s too much of it to be blood. It’s water.

     “Mom?”

     And then Sara understands what Laurel is saying, and she’s repeating it over and over again. “We’re sinking. We’re sinking.”

     “Sara,” Mom says. Sara scrambles towards her.

     “Mom, we have to get out,” she says.

     “You get out first.”

     “No, Mom, I need you to come with me.”

     “Laurel’s seatbelt is stuck.” Mom sounds scary calm.

     “Okay,” Sara says, “we’ll cut it.” She reaches towards the seatbelt and tries to pull it, to stretch it so that Laurel can slide out. It won’t stretch. “Mom! Mommy.”

     “It’s okay, Sara. You need to get out and get help.”

     “But the water!” It’s up around Sara’s waist now. Laurel’s hair is hanging down into it. Soon the water will wash up over her upside-down face.

     “Just open the door and swim up,” Mom tells her.

     Laurel is still crying. There are tears rolling down over her temples and disappearing into her hair. Sara reaches out and grabs for Laurel’s hand.

     “You have to wriggle out,” she says. “Come on, Laurel, just wriggle.” She’s crying too, Sara realises, and she sniffs hard and wipes her face on her sleeve. She has to be brave. She’s the only one who can help them.

     “Sara, go,” Mom says. “Go now, okay? There’ll be people who can help us.”

     “O-okay. Okay.”

     “Open the door,” Mom says.

     Sara scrambles over to the door. It’s all black outside. The thought of leaving Mom and Laurel behind in this black, black car makes her chest hurt. “Mommy, I don’t want to.”

     “I love you,” Mom says.

     Sara starts crying properly now, and she says, “I love you,” back but she’s crying so hard the words barely come out.

     “Open the door.”

     She pulls the handle and pushes but it’s so hard. The door’s too heavy. Sara cries and pushes and cries and water laps around her chest and she can’t hear Laurel anymore but she can hear Mom saying, “Get out, Sara,” and “Swim up, Sara.”

     The door bursts open and water floods in, more water and more water and Sara can’t see anything, not a single thing at all. Bubbles flurry out of her mouth when she sobs and water fills her nose and Sara tries to cough but she’s underwater and she chokes instead.

     Mom said to swim up and find help. Sara fumbles out of the car. Her chest hurts. Her nose burns with water. It’s dark and she can’t see which way is up. She kicks her legs out and almost screams when one of them smacks something really, really hard. Sara kicks again and reaches forward with her arms. Her arm hurts, too, she hadn’t felt it before. Her heart thumps in her ears. Everything is getting black and fuzzy and there’s water inside her. She’s going to drown.

     Sara’s head bursts through the surface of the water and she feels air on her skin. Water streams from her hair and out of her nose. She coughs and gasps in a breath and then yells, “Help!” There’s no answer. Sara tries again, “Help! Please help!” but halfway through she’s interrupted by a cough which is deep and violent. She coughs again and again until the cough turns into a vomit and water spews out through Sara’s mouth and nose.

     She has to stop after to breathe. In, out. Then she screams, “Help!” and this time there’s a light which sweeps over her face, making her squint.

     A man calls out, “Is somebody down there?”

     “Me!” Sara shouts. “Please help! Our car is sinking! My mommy is in the car and it’s sinking please help.” She starts crying before she can finish talking and she doesn’t know if the man can hear her. Her head hurts. Her arm and leg hurt.

     “Hang on!” the man says. “We’re coming to get you.”

     Sara whimpers. “Please hurry,” she says, but she thinks she’s too quiet for him to hear her. She thinks about Mom and Laurel underneath her in the blackness. How long have they been down there now? How long can they hold their breath? “Please, please hurry.”

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
 **MAY 2018**

     “I like it better here,” Sara says. “It’s a lot nicer in the future.”

     Ava glances around them; at the wilted park trees and the grey-brown park grass and the pigeon poop all over the park bench. There are black buildings towering above them and the sky is a hazy pale colour that’s not quite blue.

     “Really? It’s worse than this in the past?”

     “Uh huh. I don’t like living in Starling City.”

     “Me neither,” Ava says automatically. She’s surprised to realise that it’s the truth when the words come out of her mouth. It’s not something she’s ever thought about before. The Bureau is here, so Ava is here. She’s always travelling anyway. This place is nothing more than a base of operations.

     But she _doesn’t_ like it. The city is huge and dark and gloomy, full of crime and chaos. The stars are barely visible at night through the smog, and there’s always wind howling bitterly between the too-tall buildings. It’s an awful place. It must have been an awful place to grow up.

     “Have you ever time-travelled like way, way, way back?” Sara asks. “Like to when there’s no people, just trees and dinosaurs?”

     “Yes.”

     “Was it cool?”

     “It was pretty cool.”

     “Wow.” Sara chews on her thumbnail thoughtfully and then she says, “When I’m grown-up, do I work with you?”

     “Sort of.”

     “Do I time-travel too?”

     “Yes.”

     “But not with you?”

     “It’s complicated,” Ava says. “You have your own team. Sometimes we work together.”

     “We’re friends, though, right?”

     “Yes.”

     Sara looks down at her knees and swings her legs off the edge of the bench. “Am I happy?” she asks, quietly.

     Ava opens her mouth and then, slowly, closes it again. She doesn’t know. Because Sara’s always joking and laughing and letting everything the world throws at her just roll off her back. But there was that look in her eyes when she’d told Ava to leave. She’s suffered so many losses.

     “Sometimes,” Ava says.

     Little Sara shrugs and folds her hands in her lap. “I guess that’s better than never,” she says.

     She seems more damaged, somehow, than Ava’s Sara. This can’t be right. Ava’s read Sara’s file; she knows all of it. That careless, happy-go-lucky girl who’d gotten on a boat with Oliver Queen and given no thought to the consequences - that girl was never this hurt, withdrawn, miserable child.

     “You can tell me, if you want,” Ava offers. “You can tell me what made you so sad.”

     “Nothing did.”

     “Okay,” Ava says. “What if I tell you something sad about me first?”

     Sara looks sideways up at Ava, peeking through flyaway strands of blond hair. “What?” she asks.

     “Well, I had this friend. His name was Rip.”

     “Rip?”

     “Uh huh.”

     “Did he die?”

     Ava hesitates. “Actually, yes,” she says. “But that’s not the sad part of the story.”

 

 **EARTH 11**  
**STARLING CITY**  
 **OCTOBER 1998**

     In the hospital, the doctor tells Sara that she has greenstick fractures in her arm and leg. They put plaster casts on, heavy, thick, white things.

     Dad doesn’t need to tell her about Mom and Laurel. Sara already knows. When she was watching that man and his friends diving down into the black water over and over again, coming up dripping and gasping and empty-handed. When the ambulance arrived, and the EMTs spread a blanket over Sara where she sat shivering at the edge of the water. When she reached the hospital. She knew.

     Sara isn’t the one who tells Dad either. She tries, when he first crashes into her hospital room, rushing to the side of her bed and stroking her hair and kissing her face. She tries but her words get swallowed up in tears until no one can understand her.

     “Shh,” Dad says. “It’s okay, baby. You’re okay.”

     “I’m not,” Sara croaks.

     “Everything will be okay. You’re so strong. You just need to keep being brave for a little while longer.”

     A little while, Sara thinks. But it won’t be a little while. Mom and Laurel are never coming back. It doesn’t matter how long Sara is brave for. They’re never coming back. Years and years stretch out in front of her - an eternity, her whole life - and she’ll never see them again. Not even once. She doesn’t get to say goodbye, or sorry, or have a last quick hug.

     It hurts so much that Sara can’t even cry anymore. The tears dry on her cheeks, stiff and uncomfortable. She says, “Daddy.”

     “Yeah, baby?”

     “It’s my fault. I left them down there.”

     “No,” he whispers, putting his face close to hers until their foreheads touch. “No, Sara. You’re a survivor. Okay? You survived. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Mom-” his voice breaks and he takes a deep, hitching breath before he keeps going. “Mom wanted you to be safe.”

     “But it’s my fault,” Sara says again. She wants him to understand. She needs him to forgive her.

     “It’s not, baby.”

     “I made them crash. I was being stupid. I turned the radio up,” Sara tells him. “It was my fault, Daddy. The car crashed because of me. I did it.”

     She waits, anxiously, for him to say that it’s okay. For him to say that she couldn’t have known what would happen. That if she hadn’t taken her seatbelt off and been fooling around, she would have drowned too. That Mommy and Laurel wouldn’t be angry with Sara. That Daddy isn’t angry either.

     He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say anything. Instead he just closes his eyes and presses his lips to Sara’s forehead and stays that way for a long, long time.

     The quiet hurts so deep inside Sara that she thinks maybe something’s broken. She needs to call the doctor back in. She needs to tell him that she’s not okay, that she hurts so bad, that everything is wrong. Nothing will be okay. She’s dying, she must be, because what else could feel like this?

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
 **MAY 2018**

     A cautious hand taps Ava’s shoulder. “Hey?”

     Ava turns around from the laptop. “What do you want?” The words sound unfriendly as soon as they’re out of her mouth. She makes herself smile.

     Sara doesn’t seem to mind. “I finished that book,” she says.

     “Oh. Already?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Well… do you want another one?”

     “No,” Sara says, and then she takes a step back and folds her arms over her chest. Looking at her feet, she mumbles something.

     “Uh, sorry?”

     Sara turns away. “Never mind,” she says. “We don’t have to.”

     Ava catches the girl’s arm. “No, I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

     Slowly, Sara turns back. She won’t meet Ava’s eyes. “Could we - maybe - play a game? Or something? If you have one?”

     “You can play on my computer, if you want,” Ava offers. “I can take a work break. Get started on dinner.”

     “Oh.” Sara shrugs. “I guess.”

     Ava slides off the computer chair and watches as Sara crawls onto the seat. The girl huddles with her knees tucked up to her chest, arms wrapped around them and chin resting on her hands. She doesn’t look happy. She doesn’t look like she wants to play computer games.

     Okay, so maybe Ava’s gotten it wrong. _Again_. It’s something which has been happening a lot over the past two weeks that she’s had Sara. And it’s okay to get stuff wrong - at least, that’s what all the parenting books say - but Ava’s tired of it. She wants to get something _right_. She wants socialising to come easily to her; she wants to be the Ava Sharpe in her memories, not the mass-produced security drone from 2213. 

     “Um,” she says. “Hey. Sara? Do you maybe want to play a board game or something?”

     Sara twists around, peers up at Ava through her fringe. “Maybe.”

     “I think I have a pack of cards somewhere,” Ava says. “Or Monopoly.”

     The girl hesitates, and then; “I’m really good at Monopoly.”

     “You are?  Okay. Let’s play Monopoly.”

     Sara slides off the chair and gives Ava a shy half-smile. “Okay.”

     And finally - _finally_ \- she’s done something right.

 

 **EARTH 11**  
**STARLING CITY**  
 **NOVEMBER 1998**

     Sara wakes up in the middle of the night and knows something is wrong. The house is too quiet and too cold. She’s shivering even under two thick blankets. The mattress on the floor by her bed is empty. Dad’s gone.

     She sits up in bed and calls out for him. “Daddy?” Nothing. “ _Daddy?_ ”

     The house is absolutely silent. The kind of silence which means nobody is here. Sara’s all alone. She used to love this feeling in the house - getting left alone when Mom and Laurel went shopping, or when Dad had to rush out to work. It felt so huge and exciting; like she could do whatever she wanted.

     Now it just feels empty. And cold. It’s dark, too, and Sara can’t reach the light switch. She can’t stand up properly with the cast on her leg, and the cast on her arm stops her from using crutches properly. That’s why Dad’s been sleeping in her room. He’s been taking care of her.

     Sara slides out of bed and crawls towards the door. She tucks her broken arm up against her side and lets the cast on her lower leg drag behind her. It’s slow and it’s uncomfortable and it feels stupid, to be crawling around like a baby, but it’s safe. She can’t fall.

     Blue-white light from the streetlights streams in through the windows in the hall. The clock on the oven says 3:13. The front door is swinging open. That’s why it’s so cold.

     Now Sara’s really scared. She wants to yell for Dad again but the fear holds her chest so tight that she can hardly breathe, let alone speak. She just keeps crawling. Down the hallway towards the door and a blast of cold air hits her in the face. The big glass doors into the lounge are closed. They’re almost never closed. Sara slides one open, tentatively. It could be a burglar, she thinks. Or a murderer. What will she do if Dad dies too? Where will she go?

     “Please, Daddy,” she whimpers, and as if in answer, a dark shape on the couch moves and grunts.

     Sara freezes. She’s not sure, for a second, if it’s Dad or not. It sounded a little like him - and what sort of burglar would crash on someone else’s couch? But the room is so dark.

     “Daddy,” Sara says again, louder.

     This time, the grunt forms words. “Go away.”

     It’s him, Sara knows it now for sure. And along with the relief which floods through her body comes anger. Intense, crazy, powerful anger that makes her want to scream and run and throw things. She can’t do any of that - not with her broken arm and leg. So she turns back and crawls towards the front door and uses her good leg to slam it shut as fast and hard as she can.

     It slams _loud_. Really loud.

     Dad just shifts on the couch and mumbles something that Sara can’t hear.

     “Hey!” she yells. “Dad! You left the door open, did you know? Anyone could’ve just walked in off the street!”

     She wants him to shout back. She wants him to be as angry as she is. He doesn’t move.

     Sara’s not ready to give up, though. She crawls closer and says, “You’re supposed to be taking _care_ of me! Why weren’t you in my room?”

     And then Dad rolls sideways off the couch and hits the floor with a solid-sounding thud. He lies very still for a moment until suddenly he starts to retch. Sara cringes, recognising the sounds. She’s never seen her dad vomit before. She doesn’t even remember seeing him get sick with a cold before.

     “What’s wrong?” she tries to ask, but she’s too scared and him getting sick is making her feel sick.

     Sara turns her back, in case that helps. She lies on her side on the floor and curls her knees up to her chest. She can’t go back to her bed and leave Dad here all alone, but she can’t help him, either. Maybe if she can just stay close to him then everything will be okay. She’ll fall asleep right here and when she wakes up, he’ll be back to his old self and ready to take care of her again.

     Except there’s a horrible feeling in Sara’s chest which tells her that’s not going to happen.      

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
 **JUNE 2018**

     Someone’s banging on the door. Loud. _Really_ loud, considering that it’s just after 11PM, and Ava grimaces as she stops typing and gets to her feet. If this is a drunk neighbour, she’s going to be angry. She’s been working on the same incident report for two hours and it’s very nearly done.

     Little Sara is sitting up on the couch. “Who’s at the door?” she asks groggily.

     “I don’t know,” Ava says. “It’s okay. You can go back to sleep.”

     Sara hooks her hair behind her ears. “I wasn’t asleep,” she says stubbornly.

     She had been asleep - she’d fallen asleep about an hour ago, one arm dangling off the couch, her mouth open and face smushed into the pillow. Ava doesn’t argue the point. She brushes her hand over Sara’s hair as she passes and says, “Wait here, then.”

     It’s been just over a month since Ava found little Sara. She’s tried all of the tricks she can think of, but the Time Bureau’s software still isn’t coming up with a single place in the world where the child belongs. The whole Lance family are right here in Star City where they belong. At least, they are in 1999. In the present, none of them are left. Dinah’s moved to the other side of the country. Sara is on the Waverider.  Quentin is gone. Laurel is too - the _real_ Laurel, at least, although there’s that other version around, appearing on the news occasionally.

     The thought of the other Laurel sets something niggling in Ava’s mind. She ignores the sensation in favour of taking the chain off the door, unlocking the deadbolt and pulling it open.

     “What do you want?” she’s already asking, rudely, and then she sees who it is.

     Sara - actual _adult_ Sara - folds her arms across her chest. “Hello to you too,” she says, frowning. “Kidnapped anybody’s past selves recently?”

     Ava sighs. “You’d better come in.”

     “Too damn right,” Sara says, and she pushes past Ava and into the apartment.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG look it's me I'm back. Wow what a slacker amirite? Hahahahaha no excuses I'm just lazy. Here, have a chapter of this story you don't remember anything about! ENJOY lol.
> 
> Haven't edited probably the last 1/3 of this (maybe 2/3?) so apologies for any basic errors. Also apologies for continuity issues but it's been, like, four months? And I forgot some of what was happening.

**EARTH 1**  
**STAR CITY**  
 **JUNE 2018**

     “I didn’t kidnap anyone,” Ava says, closing the door. “And she’s not your past self.”

     “Bullshit. Just look at her.”

     “No, I know,” Ava says, “but you’re still exactly where you belong in the timeline.” She frowns. “How did you even find out I had her?”

     “Saw her when you called me.”

     “That was over a month ago!”

     Sara shrugs. “Yeah, we’ve been having some time drive problems.”

     Ava glances past her ex and into the lounge. Little Sara is still crouching on the couch, eyes wide and face anxious. “Look,” Ava says, “she’s not like you. She’s different.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “She’s had stuff happen to her, okay? She’s not just some kid from Starling City.”

     Sara shakes her head. “Yeah, what sort of stuff?”

     “Well, for starters, she was chased here through a portal by a sword-wielding assassin,” Ava says. She watches Sara’s face closely. “You don’t look surprised. Why don’t you look surprised?”

     “I ran into a sword-wielding assassin,” Sara says. “The last time I saw you. Outside the Bureau, remember? Where you totally shut me down?”

     “When?”

     “I don’t know. Not long ago. It was late, you were heading inside the building, and you told me that my past self was secret _Time Bureau business_. Oh, and not to call you Ava.” Sara rolls her eyes. “I guess we’re not on a first-name basis anymore.”

     “I never told you that.”

     “Whatever.”

     “No, I didn’t,” Ava says. Why would she keep Sara away from the younger version of herself? Okay, sure, she’s kind of given up on contacting the Waverider. She definitely could’ve tried harder to let Sara know what was happening. She hasn’t exactly been honest with the Bureau, either. But that’s totally different from _deliberately_ trying to hide little Sara.

     “Okay,” Sara says. “That’s not the point. The point is, why haven’t you put _her_ back where she belongs?”

     Ava sighs, because this isn’t working and clearly Sara doesn’t believe her. It hurts, actually. She knows things had ended badly, but this feels so distant and blunt. As if she hadn’t meant anything to Sara at all.

     “Look, I’ll take you to the Bureau. I’ll show you the timeline and then you’ll see the issue here. I can’t put her back because there’s no one _missing_ from your past.”

     Little Sara has unfolded herself from the couch. She creeps down the hallway and stands behind Ava, looking up shyly between her bangs.

     “Are you me?” she asks.

     Sara presses her lips together. “Guess so, kid,” she says.

     And abruptly the thought which Ava had been trying to shake loose springs into her head and she gets it for the first time. “No,” she blurts. “No, she’s not you.”

     Both of them glare at her in the same way; sharp pale eyes under fierce dark brows.

     “I dunno,” Sara says. “Have you _looked_ at the kid lately?”

     “Oh my god, I get it. She’s not from your past,” Ava clarifies. “She’s from a different timeline. A different Earth.”

     Sara frowns. “What, like Black Siren?”

     Little Sara says, “What’s that mean?”

     “An alternate reality,” Ava says. She turns towards the child. “That’s why the things you’ve been telling me don’t make sense. They didn’t happen to my - to _this_ Sara.”

     “Huh.” Sara crouches down and reaches for the little girl. “Let me see,” she says, pulling on the skinny wrist and rolling up the girl’s pyjama sleeve. “Birthmark looks the same.”

     It’s there on little Sara’s forearm; a blotch like a bruise. But there’s also a straight, raised pink scar cutting vertically down the inside of the same arm. The adult Sara rubs her thumb over it.

     “That’s from where I broke my wrist.”

     Ava knows without looking that there’s no matching scar on Sara’s arm.

     “Okay,” Sara says. “So she’s from another timeline or a different Earth or whatever. How do we get her back there?”

     Ava sighs. “I have no idea.”

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**TEMPORAL ZONE**  
 **???**

     Gideon says, “The alternate reality has been designated Earth-11 by the team at Star Labs. It is, as yet, unexplored.”

     Zari cannot take her eyes off the Mini-Me. The kid scratches her little, tiny-version-of-Sara nose and it’s just adorable as hell. Also kind of hilarious. She’s so much smaller, with more freckles and crooked eye teeth and a pointed, dimpled chin. She’s got skinny legs and knobbly knees and the top of her head barely reaches Sara’s shoulder, which makes her look absolutely miniscule next to the rest of the team.

     “All right,” Sara says. “So we take her to Star Labs. Problem solved.”

     The Mini-Me folds her arms across her chest. “I don’t wanna go to some _Lab_ ,” she snaps. “I’m not a science experiment. I want to stay with Ava.”

     Rory grunts. “I bet you do,” he growls.

     Sara turns around and smacks his chest. Hard. “Gross,” she says. “Shut up.”

     Rory rolls his eyes and turns to go. Zari leans against the bulkhead of the ship and keeps watching.

     “You can’t stay with Ava,” Ray is explaining to the girl, “but we’re really nice too! And it’s a very short trip to Star Labs but we can bake cookies, if you like!”

     Mini-Me rolls her eyes. “I don’t like cookies.”

     She’s definitely lying, Zari thinks, because what kid doesn’t like cookies? Ray looks crestfallen.

     “Okay,” Sara says. “No cookies. Look, all you have to do is sit still and stay out of trouble until we can send you back home. Easy.”

     “I don’t wanna go home.”

     Ray looks concerned. Sara mutters something under her breath. The Mini-Me pushes her lower lip forward into a pout. Stand-off.

     Zari sort of wishes Amaya was here. There’s definitely something to be said for that kind of calm, gentle approach. They’re supposed to be happy that she’s back in Zambesi - back fulfilling her destiny - but honestly, Zari isn’t. She hates the idea of destiny. This plan all laid out for her, unrolling beneath her feet no matter what she tries to do or say to stop it. The future she’d come from was hard and cold and dangerous. If she believes all this destiny crap, that’s the future she’s gonna end up with no matter what. It’s the future they’re all gonna get.

     Thinking about that makes her feel like everything is stupid and pointless, so Zari turns her thoughts away and focuses back on the conversation in front of her.

     “Look, you have to go home sometime,” Sara says.

     “How come?”

     “Because you belong on your own Earth.”

     The Mini-Me rolls her eyes. “Prove it.”

     “You know how time travel works, right?” Sara asks. “There’s a timeline on Earth-11 where everything goes in order, okay? You’re _supposed_ to be on Earth-11. If you go missing from the timeline, you could change the future of your world.”

     “As if I could change the future,” Mini-Me argues. “I’m just a kid.”

     “Sure,” Sara says, “but you’re me as a kid. When I get taken out of my timeline, my whole world ends. Hundreds of thousands of people die.”

     “So you’re some kind of superhero?”

     “Nah, we’re not that classy,” Sara laughs. “We’re not heroes. We’re just screw-ups doing our best. Sound familiar?”

     The Mini-Me hunches her shoulders up around her ears. “I guess,” she mutters sullenly.

     “Right. We’re going to take you to Star Labs and they’re going to get you home. Okay?”

     “Okay.”

     Well, Zari thinks. That’s settled now, then.

     And then she’s thrown to the floor as the Waverider bucks and jerks and shakes violently. All of them fall - dimly Zari can hear objects in Sara’s office smashing, too - and a horrible sound of tearing, screeching metal comes from above them.

     “Gideon!” Sara bellows.

     “We are about to experience a serious crash-landing, Captain,” the AI says. Her voice isn’t as smooth or calm as it usually is. For Gideon, it’s as close as she gets to sounding scared.

     Sara taps her earwig, sending comms ship-wide. “Legends, this is your Captain speaking,” she says grimly. “Find something solid and hang on tight.”

 

 **EARTH 11**  
**STARLIGHT CITY**  
 **JUNE 2018**

     The explosion above them is violent enough to rock the bunker. Oliver pauses for a moment and steadies himself with one hand on the concrete wall before he keeps running. The bombs and the robots are old news. It’s the aliens which are worrying him now.

     The super girl is already in the room lovingly referred to as the airlock; the only crossing point between the underground labyrinth of Starlight City and the deadly world above.

     “Kara,” Oliver says. “Are you sure you’re ready for this? Are you recharged?”

     The blond girl nods firmly. “Yes and yes,” she says. She treats Oliver to a rare smile. “Lexi says it’s only a small group this time. No trouble for me after the sun-bed.”

     Lexi Danvers is Oliver’s chief of security. She’s good at what she does - amazing, actually, considering they’re all still alive - but she has less qualms than Oliver about sending a fifteen-year-old girl into battle. Even if she’s an alien fifteen-year-old with insane superpowers. She’s still just a kid.

     “Okay,” Oliver says, and he squeezes Kara’s shoulder. “Be careful up there and don’t push it, understand?”

     She gives him a mock salute. “I got it, Sir Demon, sir.”

     Oliver rolls his eyes. No respect around here for Ra’s al Ghul anymore.

     He leaves the airlock and hurries down the corridor towards the security station. They’ll have the above-ground cameras trained on Kara’s battle, and the updated recon results from the last couple of scout drones Oliver had sent out. It’s difficult to keep tabs on the little skirmishes between the robots and aliens out in the wasteland, but so far it looks like the aliens are winning. Oliver isn’t exactly sure how he feels about that. Robots he’s been fighting for almost a decade. These aliens - Dominators, is what Kara calls them - they’re something new and totally unexpected.

     A young man steps into Oliver’s path. “Hey, Ra’s,” he says. “Doctor Wells wants you down in his lab.”

     “Right now?”

     “Right now,” the messenger confirms.

     Oliver sighs. “Okay. Thanks.” He takes the next right turn he comes across and heads for the closest stairwell.

     Harrison’s lab is really far down. _Really_ far down. It’s almost sixty flights of stairs from the surface. It’s not a nice climb to do regularly, which is probably part of the reason no one ever really visits Wells unless they have to.

     The rest of the reason is that the guy is completely nuts.

     Doctor Wells has his back to the door and he doesn’t turn around when Oliver steps into the room. He says, “It’s ready for you now,” like they’d been in the middle of a conversation.

     “What’s ready?” Oliver asks. He has to go slow with Wells. Has to tread carefully. When Wells is in the Box - the mad-science project he’d designed to give them a chance in this war - he sees everything. The past, the future, all of the patterns and threads which lead them in one direction or another. It’s amazing. It’s an incredible advantage for them.

     The trouble is, using the Box has slowly driven Wells mad. When he comes out, now, he’s not normal or rational or sane.

     “A way to see the ripples,” Wells says. He turns around and holds something out to Oliver. “I’ve got it ready just in time. Now you’ll understand.”

    It’s a small, flat metal disc. Oliver takes it warily and turns it over in his hand. “What does this do, Wells?”

     “I’ve just _told_ you.”

     Oliver takes a couple of slow, deep breaths. “Okay,” he says. “I’m sorry. Can you explain it to me again? Like you’re teaching Kalina, remember, Wells? Slow and simple.”

     “Slow and simple,” Wells repeats. “It stabilises your mind in time.” He taps his own temple. “I have mine, you see? It stops me from seeing all the permutations. All the possibilities at once. They crowd me and I can’t tell which ones are real and I don’t know who to talk to. _This_ keeps me stuck in one timeline. It will keep you here, too, and then you’ll see when it unravels around you.”

     Oliver’s starting to get it. “You mean I’ll see the changes in the timeline,” he says. “Like, anything that Nyssa changes, for example? On her mission? I’ll see that happen?”

     Wells flaps a hand in the air. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says. He turns back away from Oliver. “I’m not ready, you know.”

     “Ready for what?”

     “No,” Wells says. “No, I’m not.” He rubs a hand absently over his chin and then reaches for a flat book on his desk. “Now you know, don’t you? You’ll hold this for me.”

     Oliver takes the book when Wells thrusts it at him. He says, “What’s in it?”

     “In my head? Nothing. Empty.”

     “In the book.”

     “It’s for Alec,” Wells says. “Give it to Alec, won’t you? He’ll need it. When you see him, you give it to him.”

     “Who’s Alec?”

     Wells turns back around to stare at Oliver with bloodshot, exhausted eyes. He taps his temple again. “Make sure you put that in.”

     Oliver holds the metal disc in his hand. “Is it safe?”

     “Yes,” Wells says. “Safe, yes. Maybe. Not safe, but _necessary_ , you understand? Vital. Essential. You must have it. I’m not ready to go, so you wear the disc and you keep the book and you give it to Alec.”

     Oliver shakes his head. “I’m not wearing this unless I know it’s safe. I’m sorry. I can’t take that risk.”

     Wells cocks his head on one side and pauses, listening. A few seconds later there’s another explosion. It’s so far above them that Oliver barely feels it; like a clap of thunder a hundred miles away.  

     “You should go,” the doctor tells Oliver. “Not your time.”

     “All right.” Oliver holds up the book and the disc. “You want me to take these?”

     Wells nods. He’s already lost interest; he’s turning back towards his desk, bending over some new project. “Goodbye,” he says.

     “Thanks, Wells. I’ll come check in again soon,” Oliver promises.

     He’s thirty flights up when a bang ten times louder than a gunshot echoes through the stairwell and the bunker trembles around him. There are sounds from below; screaming metal and crumbling concrete. Oliver crouches on the stairs and covers his head as debris rains down. The bunker shakes and the electric lights flicker and above him, warning sirens start going off.

     When the tremors and the sirens finally stop there’s a long, long silence. Oliver brushes plaster dust from his hair and stands warily. He doesn’t want to go down. He knows he has to.

     He climbs down and down and down until he reaches the point where the stairs are blocked by rubble. Oliver doesn’t need to shift much of it before he understands that it’s pointless. The bottom floors of the bunker - Wells’ lab and his Box and Wells himself - are gone.

 

 **EARTH 1**  
**???**  
 **???**

     Sara presses herself flat to the floor, her fingers curling in to find any purchase and her knees locked out. She fists one hand into the fabric of her younger self’s shirt, keeping the child anchored. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Ray throwing an arm across little Sara’s legs and holding her down.

     That’s really all they have time for before they crash. Sara smacks her head into the edge of her office stairs but she stays conscious. Zari slides across the bridge and gets tangled up with Ray. Little Sara weathers it all quite well, held in place the way she is.

     Sara sits up and puts a hand to the top of her head, wincing even as she says, “Gideon? Everyone okay?”

     “Everyone is physically unharmed, Captain.”

     “What happened?”

     “I am unable to answer that at this time.”

     “Where are we?”

     “I am unsure, Captain Lance.”

     Great. So that’s the where, when and why all gloriously unaccounted for. Sara gets onto her knees and groans as her head throbs with the movement.

     “Oh no,” Ray says. “Sara, are you okay?”

     “Huh? Yeah, fine.”

     Zari pulls herself free of Ray and says, “Not you. He means Mini.” She scoots across the floor towards the alternate-baby-Sara and touches the girl’s shoulder. “Hey, you good?”

     The kid has her forehead pressed into the floor. She doesn’t look hurt but her body is tense and trembling. She looks like she’s crying, honestly. Sara hates crying in front of an audience. As a kid she hadn’t minded, but now? Never. Maybe this version of her is just kind of advanced.

     “I got her,” Sara says. “Can you guys go find the others? Bring them all back here, okay? I don’t want anyone on their own right now.”

     She watches Ray and Zari get to their feet and leave before she bends over the little girl.

     “I’m fine,” Mini-Sara says thickly. She’s definitely crying.

     “It’s just me,” Sara says. “I’m you. I don’t care if you cry. Sit up.”

     Mini-Sara sits up and pushes her hair out of her face. Her eyes are red. “You’re not me,” she says. “You’re like me. But the bad stuff never happened to you.” She’s fingering that scar on the inside of her arm.

     Sara opens her mouth, half-formed thoughts ready to spill out, but the rest of the team comes into the bridge and she closes it again. Little Sara hastily rubs her sleeves over her eyes, swiping away the evidence of tears.

     “Okay,” Sara says, getting to her feet. “We don’t know where we are or why we crashed. Nate, you and Wally-”

     “Captain,” Gideon interrupts, “there are creatures attempting to board the ship.”

     “What? What creatures?”

     Constantine says, “They’ve found us, love.”

     Sara rolls her eyes. “ _What?_ What are they?”

     “Demons. All sorts of demons. Magical beasties. Fairy-tale monsters. They’re all real, you know,” Constantine says. “They’re right bastards, too, even the ones you think are nice. Don’t get me started on unicorns.”

     “ _Unicorns?”_ the little Sara asks.

     “Ah, you wouldn’t like these unicorns, pet.”

     “Okay,” Sara says. “So we go outside and fight magical monsters. No big deal.” She shrugs. “Suit up.”

     “Uh, who’s watching the Mini-Me?” Zari asks.

     Sara looks down at the kid. It really is like a window straight back into the past. She can remember fighting with Laurel and snuggling on the couch with Dad to watch TV. God, how did she end up here?

     “Ray,” she says. “You’re on Mom-duty.”

     Ray’s too nice to complain about it but there’s a frustrated sort of tilt to his head when he says, “Oh, okay. We’ll stay on the ship.”

     “Yeah, you will,” Sara agrees. “Gideon? Keep an eye on them.”

     “Of course, Captain Lance.”

     “Right.” Sara takes a moment; drags her focus away from the kid and forces it onto the fight ahead of her. “Let’s go.”


End file.
